Influencing factors of the digital transformation on the supply chain complexity dimensions

Abstract

Digital Disruption - 'the world in which we live in is changing'! Next-day delivery, Click & Collect, personalization, short delivery times and full order transparency have been incorporated in our daily life. In order to stay competitive, companies must react to the shifting customer demand towards on-demand, fitfor- purpose services and other market requirements. Due to these challenges and the increasing globalization, companies are confronted with ever more complex supply chain networks. The way to deal with the strongly increasing complexity of the company itself and its environment has become a key competitive factor. The complexity within a production company is characterized by the challenges encountered in daily business processes and can be described by the four dimensions of complexity: variety, heterogeneity, dynamics and non- transparency, as well as their interrelationships. Therefore, Supply Chain Management (SCM) is evolving from simply managing a chain of suppliers and manufactures towards a complex network including complicated backflows. New approaches in the context of digital transformation promise to support the management of such complex supply networks. Within this paper, influencing factors of the digital transformation and their effect on the four complexity dimensions are presented.