Today's business environment is more competitive than it has been in the past due to globalization. Manufacturers are faced with uncertain demand and have to deal with well informed and increasingly demanding customers. This has forced them to invest in Information Technology (IT) in their supply chains to respond better to the needs of customers. Practitioners and researchers are finding it difficult to justify the role of IT to improve firm performance unequivocally. This book describes a study that explores how IT in downstream supply chain affects the competitive marketing performance of the firm. Adopting the resource-based view of the firm as the theoretical framework, the study hypothesizes that firm IT resources (e.g. IT Advancement and IT Alignment) facilitate supply chain capabilities which lead to first order operational benefits and strategic marketing benefits. These benefits will in turn affect the firm's competitive marketing performance. The book details the empirical research which is based on the responses from 307 managers in supply chain, logistics, sales, marketing and operations in Indian manufacturing organizations. It also uncovers the critical and specific aspects of supply chain capabilities that enhance the benefits to the firm through the dimension level analysis which identified Supply Chain responsiveness and collaboration as leading to significant operational and strategic marketing benefits. The implications of the research are that investment in IT resources must aim at the creation of supply chain capabilities that will lead to improvements in marketing performance. The findings explain how a firm's IT resources can create an impact on firm competitive marketing performance. It thus provides an insight into the positive impact of IT-enabled processes in the downstream supply chain.
