Towards a theoretical model of digitally induced enterprise transformation

Organizations no longer compete with each other in isolation but rather as networks or supply chains. Customers today demand efficiency as well as flexibility, customized products and services and quick delivery. Supply chain management is a considered approach that links all trading partners to ensure delivery of goods and services to the final consumer efficiently and effectively. Fulfillment---getting the right product to the right customer at the right time---is a critical issue in supply chain management in the ebusiness era. Integration of supply chains is essential to achieving effective fulfillment. The objective of supply chain integration is not only reduced costs but also better sharing of risks, profits and competitive positions across the supply chain. Integrating and coordinating the entire supply chain from end to end in order to achieve these objectives presents many technological and managerial challenges.; The objective of this study is to develop a theoretical model about how digital flow integration enables IT infrastructure and partnerships to influence supply chain resource flows in product environments of differing innovativeness. Multiple theoretical perspectives are incorporated to identify how structural capital represented by information technology (IT) infrastructure, leverages the relational capital represented by supply chain partnerships to enable the integration of physical, financial and digital resource flows and efficiency, customer relationship and revenue growth based measures of organizational performance.; The primary mode of data collection used is a self-report survey instrument. The data for the study was collected from 110 logistics and supply chain managers in manufacturing and retail organizations. The PLS method of structural modeling was used to test the research model.; Our results suggest that organizations use supply chain partnerships and IT infrastructure to implement digital flow integration across the supply chain. Digital flow integration enables the coordination of physical flows which when combined with integrated financial flows enables improvements in organizational efficiency and customer relationships. Partnerships, IT infrastructure and digital flow integration enable organizations to improve supply chain integration even in the presence of flexibility pressures presented by innovative products environments.