Supply Chain Management ( Klassen Why Bark, 1994 )

A supply chain can be termed as a network of organizations that collaborate to share information and materials. Supply chain management is a way by which the companies can gain competitive advantage over their competitors by reducing their cost and lead time and at the same time increasing their efficiency by differentiating the processes and the links between the suppliers and the buyers (Klassen Why bark, 1994). For doing so, using IT based systems is the need of the hour. With the ever growing demand and expectations from the customers along with dynamically changing market, the companies are turning to the successful deployment of IT to re-engineer their supply chain, so as to sustain and grow their business. (Poter, 1986). This is a great opportunity to incorporate IT into supply chain due to the increasing development in IT and communication that leads to integration of system architecture and Information technology (Balan, Vrat, Kumar, Assessing the challenges and opportunit ies of global supply chain management, 2006). Moreover optimal information sharing using IT based systems has reduced the need for sharing of information within the organization (Balan, Vrat, Kumar, Information distortion in a supply chain and its mitigation by using Soft Computing Approach, 2009). The recent advances have also made it possible for the companies to be flexible and be able to respond quickly to the changing demands and conditions of the market. (Lee, So, Tang, 2000) IKEA