The Role of Logistics Information and Communication Technologies in Promoting Competitive Advantages of the Firm

Susana Azevedo (), Joao Ferreira and João Leitão

The IUP Journal of Managerial Economics, 2008, vol. VI, issue 3, 7-21

Abstract: In the 21st century, with rapid growth of technology, economic society and life have changed significantly. Promoting competitive advantages has become the most important issue for firms in this rapidly changing and uncertain business environment. Many researches have pointed out that the adoption of technology is the most important tool for firms to maintain their competitive advantages. The survival of a firm in the knowledge-based economy depends on how they improve their technological capability. In this sense, firms should develop adequate methodologies, in order to adopt, in a successful way, new technologies in the logistics field, and also to integrate logistics into the corporate strategy for becoming even more competitive. A growing number of firms are under pressure from their partners to change their traditional management style, both operationally and organizationally, replacing them with integrated systems that help to increase the speed and fluidity of physical and information flows. In order to reach this kind of integration they are investing on new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This paper considers ICT as devices or infrastructures that make communication of business information among organizations more efficient. The present paper aims to highlight the importance of ICT on logistics and to understand the impact of ICT on the competitiveness of firms. In this paper, a conceptual model for the adoption of logistics ICT is presented, by taking into consideration four determinant factors—individual, organizational, technological/innovation, and environmental. The interaction established among the referred determinant factors may be identified through the computation of the predominant factor, by using a selected set of adequate indicators and a simple geometry methodology. These procedures may provide the identification of the sources of competitive advantages of firms that adopt logistics ICT. The logistics ICT analyzed in this paper are grouped into three types—the identification, the data communications, and the data acquisition technologies.

Date: 2008
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Working Paper: The Role of Logistics' Information and Communication Technologies in Promoting Competitive Advantages of the Firm (2007)
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