Competitive environment of modern times is forcing the firms to shift focus from inside the corporate walls to collaboration with outside trading partners. Enhanced communication technology has redefined how businesses work together, raise customers’ expectations and place new demands on supply chain performance. Internet has allowed companies to come up with highly innovative solutions that accelerate the widespread adoption of core principles of supply chain management. Companies that make use of e-business to redefine supply chain integration achieve significant increase in their efficiency and competitive edge over their competitors. The next few years will see an explosion of e-enabled supply chain management as visionary companies develop new paradigms of e-business for the future.

This book focuses on concepts, principles and real life experiences which improve understanding of the Supply Chain Management (SCM). Available information has been analysed and synthesised across many disciplines, such as purchase and supply management, marketing, organisational dynamics, logistic and transportation management, information technology, strategic management, and operations management.

The book is designed to contribute to the existing body of literature available on supply chain management. It consists of 28 papers authored by scholars in the area. This work, which is replete with new concepts and practices, will commend itself to all categories of readers, particularly academicians, researchers and students of management, economics and commerce.

Dr. Jayashree Dubey is currently Assistant Professor (Production and Operations Management) at Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE), Osmania University Campus, Hyderabad. Dr. Jayashree, MBA (Marketing & Finance), Ph.D. ( Management) and BE (Electricals) has more than ten years of academic and research experience in the area of production and operations management. She has also been associated with the Distance Learning Programme Division of BITS, Pilani and was a visiting faculty at National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). She has handled a major research project of the Ministry of Small-scale Industries, Government of India. Apart from research assignments, she has published articles in the above areas in journals of national and international repute.

 Professor M.L. Sai Kumar is presently Head, Information Technology Division at Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE), Osmania University Campus, Hyderabad. He has also been the Coordinator for PGDBM programmes at the Institute. Professor Sai Kumar was conferred the award of “International Man of the Year for IT Education” by the International Biographical Center, Cambridge. Apart from academic pursuits, he has trained several IAS and IPS officers in IT applications. He has conducted several workshops for the corporate sector in areas like software engineering, e-commerce and project management. Being a visiting faculty to various universities, he is also member of recruitment boards of various public and private sector organisations. In his career of over three decades, Professor Sai Kumar has authored several books and published numerous papers.