Exploring Information Systems Potential in the Ecr Context

Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) has recently emerged as a grocery industry strategy giving emphasis to the application of modern management methods, co-operative practices and available technologies in order to achieve a responsive, consumer-driven replenishment system. Under this strategy, information technology (IT) and information systems (IS) in general seem to play a key role, through the possibility they provide to surmount both time and distance constraints. In this paper, the potential of information systems in the ECR context is explored under three different aspects: the positioning of ECR in relation to the IS evolution course, the examination of ECR under the concept of inter-organisational information systems, and the support offered by IT and IS to specific ECR business applications. A theoretical framework, associating all these different perspectives, is finally presented and its practical implications are discussed.