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Top1. Introduction
In the present-day context, global business landscape has been witnessing a substantive amount of consumption as well as a significant amount of increase in manufacturing output (Wiedmann, 2016). Given this scenario, Supply Chain Management (SCM) function of firms, have become a pivotal element in the firm value chain (LeMay et. al., 2017). With increased globalization and robust economic growth, any firm’s SCM function was expected to play a much valuable and critical role in its business endeavor (Passaris, 2006). Traditionally, SCM functions such as procurement, logistics and distributions were aligned to meet increased expectations of customers (Toit and Vlok, 2014). However, the current business environment has been characterized by the presence of knowledgeable customers and suppliers globally (Gunasekaran, et. al., 2008). Indian economy and its business landscape have also witnessed a growth narrative getting into this millennium (Kapoor, 2019; Bhattacharyya, et. al., 2012). Given this context, it would be very important to understand how SCM has been functioning in the Indian business landscape. In the current business scenario, a defining goal for firms’ SCM function would be required given the enormous market size but substantive market pressure so as to reduce the gap between demand and supply. A large set of emerging technologies like Blockchain (BC), Machine learning (ML), Artificial intelligence (AI), Big data analysis (BDA), Internet of things (IoT) amongst other technologies have been altering SCM context and business in general (Holloway, 2015; Bhattacharyya and Shrey, 2019). So, in SCM functions, technologies have increasingly been playing a decisive role in improving the overall success of an organization (Berttram and Schrauf, 2016). Given the emergent realities transpiring globally, it became pertinent that Indian firm’s SCM functions should also be matured (Bhattacharyya et. al., 2020). The size of the Indian economy has been expected to be around 5 trillion dollars by the end of year 2024 (Dastane et. al., 2019). Expected future growth in Indian economy, would generate huge potential in the SCM domain (Mani et al., 2017). Presence of high-end technologies such as AI, ML, IoT, Cloud computing, Cyber physical system (CPS) and such others have been driving factors for Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA) (Bhattacharyya, et. al., 2020; Yu et. al., 1993; Verma and Bhattacharyya, 2016). India has been demographically as well as geographically a large country with poor infrastructure (Bloom, 2011). So, the adoption of these technologies would help to improve the efficacy and efficiency of SCM to cater the entire length and breadth of India (Li, 2014). In this circumstance, it would be essential for the managers to know how SCM functions have been evolving with time through application of advanced technologies (Bhattacharyya, et. al., 2020). Now, these set of technologies would also drive SCM functions from a traditional one to smart one in nature (Min et. al., 2019). The role of Dynamic Capabilities View (DCV) would also become more potent with the increased complexity of SCM functions (Beske, et. al., 2014; Reuter et al., 2010). So, the purpose of this article was to understand the strategic imperative of adopting smart SCM utilizing newer technologies by Indian firms in the context of a growing economy like India from a DCV perspective (Teece, et. al.,1997).
To understand the industry narrative on the research topic, authors interviewed different industry experts based upon an open-ended questionnaire. Authors tried to comprehend the scope of applications of emerging technologies in supply chain business functions from a dynamic capabilities’ perspective. The following questions were answered like, what were the capabilities required by Indian firms, to implement advance technologies in SCM? What were the factors managers should focus while planning for adoption of smart SCM? How smart SCM could be implemented by Indian firms? And how compared to traditional SCM infrastructure, the smart SCM infrastructure would add strategic gains. The subsequent section presented a synthesis of literature reviews and analyzed the extant research gaps. Further, the research methodology was presented followed by the findings and discussion. In the final section, the conclusion, limitations, and future scopes for research was presented.