Article Preview
Top1. Introduction
Since the 1990s, many large organizations collaborated with their suppliers to improve their purchasing process. Accordingly, different business functions being conducted separately were integrated via the internet which is known as e-supply chain management (e-SCM) (Tan, 2001). As reported by Auramo et al. (2005), Cisco Corporation, for example, had saved 500 million dollars by integrating its business processes using a web-based tool. Moreover, the use of IT in the supply chain had helped Dell to improve its delivery processes and reach the customer expectations (Auramo et al., 2005; Chen & Anastasia, 2008).
Similar to large organizations, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) found themselves in a position where they have to respond quickly and easily to the market changes. Therefore, they began to emphasize on their supply chain processes by using information technology to meet the industry requirements (Chen & Anastasia, 2008). Appropriate usage of supply chain management system in SMEs can easily and effectively coordinate and connect the manufactures, the suppliers and the customers inside the enterprise (Hsin et al., 2008).
Several studies have focused on how to make the best use of internet technology in businesses and how to improve the supply chain using the information technology to collaborate between different businesses for large organizations (Frholich, 2002; Leon-Pena, 2008; Simatunpang et al., 2002). However, there is still a little research done on the impact of the e-supply chain management on business integrity for SMEs. SMEs need e-SCM to reach integrity internally for different business processes and externally with the suppliers and customers. Accordingly, this research attempts to address the impact of e-supply chain management on enhancing business integration in SMEs which would help to reach an answer to the following question: how e-supply chain management system enhances business integrity in SMEs?
The paper structure starts with reviewing the literature about e-supply chain management integration tools and models. This is followed by explaining the methodology used and describing the case study of the selected company. Eventually, the discussion section describes how e-SCM enhances business integrity.