The Effect of Supply Chain Integration Performance in Ethiopian Trading Enterprises
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Date
2016-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Supply chain integration is a vital approach to enhance the various aspects of operational
performance. The main target of the study is to assess the effects of supply chain integration on
operational performance in Ethiopian trading enterprise. The process of integration has many
touch points with multiple functions within the company and these functions need to be
integrated in order to provide better performance to the company and service to the customer. In
order to undertake the study, problems related to lack of alignment among departments, problem
of reordering based on the need of market due to lack of coordination with demand forecasting
which leads to backlog delay, lack of integrated information system and lack of well organized
structure which is critical for integration were the critical forces which lead this study into the
forefront. An explanatory research design was employed with a sample of 108 employees
through stratified sampling. A questionnaire was used as a research tool for collecting data.
Baseline data were captured from some informants and from secondary data. The collected data
was analyzed using both descriptive statistics (mean & standard deviation) and inferential
statistics (correlation and linear regression). Main findings of the study depicts that, there is
poor integration along the supply chain as the mean values of the four supply chain dimension
(internal integration, customer integration, information integration and supplier
integration)were below the minimum requirement(i.e. less than the mean value of 2.5).Moreover,
internal integration, customer integration, and supplier integration dimensions of supply chain
integration had a significant effect on operational performance of the enterprise in which
information integration dimension had failed to signify the effect and needs to include other
supply chain variables. Finally, the results on the conclusion entails us that the four research
questions developed in this study were considerably rated low by the employees which actually
indicates the supply chain integration is not at the required level of its employees. And also, the
study recommends proper internal integration, supplier integration and customer integration in
order to bring effective operational performance
Keywords: Customer integration, information integration, internal integration, operational
performance, supplier integration, supply chain integration
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Keywords
Customer integration; information integration; internal integration;operational performance; supplier integration; supply chain integration