Mapping the Critical Links between Supply Chain Evaluation System and Supply Chain Integration Sustainability: An Empirical Study

Literature Review

The literature suggests that superior business performance is achieved through competitive advantage by developing business capabilities that provide value-added activities to end-users in unique ways or at lower prices than competitors (Porter, 1991). Providing value-added activities in unique and low-cost ways require anticipating customer demand and responding to changes in the demand faster than competitors (Stalk et al., 1992). Independent firms can leverage each others’ capabilities to achieve competitive advantage for the entire supply chain. The literature refers to the leverage of capabilities in a supply chain as an outcome of SCI (Geoffrion & Powers, 1995).

To explain how companies create capabilities, the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory says that firms must invest resources in improving business processes (Stank et al., 2005). These include, but are not limited to, customer focus, time management, integration, information exchange, demand management, new product development, and evaluation capabilities.