Investigating the impact of big data analytics on supply chain operations: case studies from the UK private sector

Abstract

In the era of increasing competitive pressure and pace of changing demand, volatility and disturbance have become the standard in today’s global markets. The spread of Covid-19 is a prime example of this. Supply chain (SC) managers are urged to rethink their competitive strategies and to identify ways to offer personalised products and services through making use of advanced technologies. With many SC executives recognising the role of data exploitation in improving performance, big data analytics (BDA) has become a salient factor for all kinds of organisations to increase efficiency and gain competitive advantage. Extant research in supply chain management (SCM) has provided limited understanding of strategic SC decision-making concerning BDA. Moreover, inquiry in this area is still poor in relation to providing a conceptual framework that illustrates the potential benefits of BDA utilisation in the SCO context. This study aims to investigate the real impact of BDA implementation in this context. A theoretical framework is developed to explain the motives behind adopting BDA in SCO along with the potential benefits of implementing BDA in SCO. Multiple case studies are the strategy utilised to collect qualitative data in order to gain detailed and in-depth understanding of the BDA as a new phenomenon in the context of SCOs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in a cross-sectional time horizon across four different industries. Institutional theory and Task-Technology fit theories are utilised to provide better understanding regarding how and why firms adopt BDA as a novel technology, along with the drivers and opportunities of this technology utilisation. The empirical findings reveal that BDA is still in its infant stage, but it is a growing area which has recently been given more attention by scholars and managers. There is a disconnect between the hype and knowledge discussed in the literature and the real practice of BDA. That is, the current state of BDA use is relatively fragmented and rhetoric in discussion among practitioners and researchers. The main contribution of this study is breaking-down the process of BDA utilisation in order to evaluate its implementation in the SCO context by drawing upon a wide range of existing literature regarding BDA and SCO, in addition to present conceptual framework explaining the potential impact of BDA implementation through presenting BDA utilisation drivers, BDA capabilities, and its role in solving different issues.