The impact of collaboration planning forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) on the performance of firms in a supply chain

In today's digital economy, firms increasingly rely on their business partners to add value to their products and services. Electronically driven collaboration initiatives are emerging in a good number of supply chains where critical information must be visible and available for both upstream and downstream partners. In these technology-driven supply chain relationships, improved performance is the ultimate goal. However, in order to obtain a high level of performance, efforts must be made and methods are required to plan collaborative actions between supply chain partners.; This study analyzes the impact of collaboration planning on the performance of a supply chain. The first elements of collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR), namely developing a front-end agreement and creating a joint business plan, are used to assess the effect of collaboration planning on the supply chain's performance. This study also has the objectives of analyzing the impact of collaboration planning on a firm's innovativeness and, of evaluating the mediating effect of process and relational innovations on the relationship between collaboration planning and supply chain performance.; In order to achieve these specific objectives, the study was carried out in two phases. First, a field research, which focuses on one large telecommunications equipment manufacturer and a few strategic first-tier suppliers, provides the basis to fully understand the collaboration methods and the various issues and concerns of the different members of the telecommunication equipment supply chain. The impact of collaboration methods on the dynamics of supply chain relationships was clearly an issue for the companies involved in the field research. For system integrators, different roles may be attributed to collaboration tools in the constant evolution of the supply chain: (i) facilitate access to information, which affects knowledge creation capabilities, and (ii) assist in the design of flexible supply chains. The field study also demonstrated that process and relational innovations are enhanced by the development of electronic collaboration activities within the telecommunications equipment supply chain. Supply chain collaboration initiatives such as CPFR change the way firms do business with partners (process innovation) and transform the way they interact (relational innovation).; An electronic survey conducted with 53 firms worldwide acting in the same supply chain constitutes the second phase of the study. The research model is established on two important issues: (i) reaching firms positioned at different levels of one supply chain and (ii) analyzing the supply chain from both the upstream and downstream perspectives. The results indicate that collaboration planning has a significant effect on process and relational innovations and on supply chain performance in terms of output, resource and flexibility measures. The findings also reveal a partial mediation effect of innovativeness on the relationship between collaboration planning and supply chain performance.; Finally, using cluster analysis, an attempt is made to develop a typology of collaboration among firms within a supply chain environment. The telecommunications equipment supply chain seems to be adequately represented by three groups, representing stages from minimal concern with supply chain collaboration to in-depth involvement.