Improving Supply Chain Integration for Competitiveness in the African Continental Free Trade Area - The case of Ethiopian manufacturing Industries in Addis Ababa
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Date
2020-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The manufacturing industries in developing countries have been facing unprecedented competitiveness
pressure
generated
by
different
new
business
trends.
To
cope
with
these
pressures,
the
manufacturing
industries
had
tried
to
upgrade
their
operations
by
using
different
manufacturing
techniques.
Despite
these
efforts;
the
manufacturing
industries
have
not
yet
made
their
share
of
markets.
Like
in
any
other
developing
country,
manufacturing
industries
in
Ethiopian
are
facing
the
same
challenge. A number of causes for the low performance of the Ethiopian manufacturing
industries had been identified by different researchers. One of the causes identified by these researchers
was
a
weak
Supply
Chain
Integration
(SCI).
In the near future, on top of the existing challenges of the Ethiopian manufacturing firms, other
challenges from the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) are going to emerge. One of
these challenges could be fierce competition from African products that enter into Ethiopia with
very low border tariffs and import duties. Unless the Ethiopian manufacturing firms get prepared
in every aspect to compete in the free market, their existence would be in question. With this understanding,
this research was conducted with the main objective of identifying the aggregate
causes of weak SCI, identifying challenges that could emerge with ACFTA, and finally developing
a model that can help to improve the SCI for competitiveness in ACFTA. The main reason for
selecting the SCI model as a technique among the different techniques was that effective supply
chain management (SCM) and supply chain integration (SCI) are becoming increasingly critical
factors for business success. Besides, the issue of competitiveness in ACFTA is the issue of competitiveness
in
the
Supply
chain.
The primary data for this research was collected from 27 managers of 14 different manufacturing
firms by administering a questionnaire. Secondary data was also collected from different online
sources. The data collected were more qualitative which were analyzed with qualitative data analyzing
procedure.
The
quantitative
data
were
also
analyzed
using
Excel
tools.
In the end, the research has identified the aggregate causes for the weak SCI of Ethiopian manufacturing
industries;
have
also
identified
possible
Challenges
that
could
emerge
with
ACFTA.
At
last
but
not
least, a
SCI
model had
been
developed.
Finally,
the
researcher has
found
out
that
the
benefits
of
SCI
and
the
benefits
of
ACFTA to
be
similar,
which
led
the
researcher
to
conclude
that
SCI
and
ACFTA
are
complementary.
In
other
words, an
efficient
SCI
helps
for
competitiveness
in
ACFTA;
in
reverse
the
ACFTA
also
supports
the
improvement
of
SCI.
Description
Keywords
Supply chain, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Integration (SCI), African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA), Manufacturing industries competitiveness, SCI challenges, SCI model