Measuring the Business Value of Electronic Supply Chain Collaboration: The Case of Electronic Invoicing

In the last decade, supply chain management has changed its focus, centring now on value creation, by taking into consideration the recent trends of partners integration and implementation of internet technologies. Within this context, this paper presents measurable results regarding the business value of supply chain collaboration practices enabled by e-commerce technologies. The presented research addresses electronic supply chain collaboration by examining the case of electronic invoicing (the electronic exchange of invoice data between supply chain partners) as a type of collaborative message-based system. The paper presents the quantitative and qualitative results of a series of case studies from the grocery retail sector. The results indicate considerable cost savings, especially as the extent of collaboration increases. Additionally, qualitative results from the interviews are provided, supporting suggestions for future research.