The impact of information technology on supply chain resilience

In order to survive in an uncertain business environment, companies invest in IT aiming to increase their efficiency and effectiveness, as well as improve their collaboration with trading partners. However, the positive results of IT are short lived, as the increasingly turbulent environment forces companies to conduct changes both internally and at the level of their supply chain. These are often followed by smaller or larger modifications of the companies' IT infrastructures, which are costly, time consuming and may disrupt the smooth operation of organizations for a large period of time. Therefore, companies seek resilience aiming to respond to or absorb environmental disturbances, avoiding large scale changes. Resilience is an evolving concept, defined as the ability of a company or supply chain to return to its normal operating performance, within an acceptable period of time, after being disturbed. Resilient supply chains incorporate event readiness, are capable of providing an efficient response, and are often capable of returning to their original state post the disruptive event. New technologies, such as cloud-based solutions, may support supply chain resilience, providing low cost, pay per use and scalable solutions. However, contemporary IT infrastructures include not only new, but also different types of technologies with varied characteristics. Therefore, the relationship between IT and resilience needs to be further investigated.

This paper primarily aims to clarify the notion of supply chain resilience and to discuss its differences with supply chain agility or flexibility. It adopts a sociotechnical approach and develops a theoretical framework to analyse resilience both at the level of the firm and at the level of the supply chain. Based on previous research, the paper identifies robustness, efficiency and responsiveness as the main dimensions of resilience. It also follows Vickers's appreciative systems thinking perspective, arguing that resilience can be analysed by the process through which organisations or supply chains "appreciate" an environmental disturbance and based on judgments of facts and values decide upon an action of response. The ability to respond, that is the ease of response, is indicated by the different dimensions of resilience and is influenced by the organisations' IT infrastructure. The paper shows that complex IT infrastructures may sometimes hinder the sensing and responding capabilities of organisations. It argues that they can enable resilience, only by supporting specific IT characteristics, such as information sharing, resource on demand, software scalability, integration and compatibility.