Supply Chain Management – A Critical Review of Its Impact on Competitive Potential

Supply chain management has been the focus area for every manufacturing industry worldwide as a tool to gain competitive advantage in the globalized economic scenario. Subjects such as suppliers’ and customers’ management, integration, internal supply chain management; quality management, information management, logistics management and relationships management have been extensively discussed at various platforms world over. Concerns are frequently raised regarding gaps between theory and practices, effective implementation of practices and the success rate of such practices. Extensive literature is available on supply chain management in form of books, journals and conference proceedings. This research intends to explore the literature with an objective to assess the impact of implementing supply chain management practices on performance and competitive potential of manufacturing industry. It was concluded that though the companies taking initiative in implementing SCM practices face a number of hurdles at an initial phase, over a long term they are bound to benefit from effective implementation of such practices.