Competitive Advantage through Information and Communication Technology (ict) Enabled Supply Chain Management Practices

The impact of globalization has compelled SMEs to adopt Information and Communication Technology (ICT) practices to survive and compete with large companies. This paper describes the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enabled Supply Chain Management practices to achieve the competitive advantage. The paper synthesizes the existing contributions to supply chain literature primarily focusing on ICT practices and draws on various related bodies of literature that enables SMEs to achieve competitive advantage. The key for SMEs is that the information and communication technology provides so many options and avenues to take advantage of in a way that big business just can't or doesn't see value in. Finally the paper suggests that SMEs should establish appropriate ICTs goals, identifies critical ICTs needs and allocates financial resources in order to achieve the competitive advantages.