Supply chains of the future and emerging consumer-based electronic services

Abstract

This paper focuses on the supply-chain opportunities provided by emerging wireless and mobile commerce technologies coupled with automatic product identification technologies (RFID) as well as collaborative environments for sharing information. Speed and visibility have become supply chain imperatives and it is foreseen that the above technologies will transform the supply chain, delivering multiple benefits, such as improved on-self availability and customer service, reduced losses and theft, improved inventory, traceability, warehouse/ back-room, and shelf management. The paper identifies the four major supply chain transformations: sharing information to collaborate, automatic identification of individual items (RFID), product and consumer safety with traceability, and consumer value management (CVM). On these four aspects of S.C. transformations it identifies emerging electronic services with examples from the consumer goods industry. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.