Empirical evidence of the impacts of electronic commerce on supply chain integration in the telecommunication equipment industry

This paper presents an analysis of the impacts of electronic commerce on proactive firms in the connectivity equipment industry. Electronic commerce initiatives identified in the optical connectivity value chain were analyzed for each of the four layers of the chain namely network operators, system integrators, assemblers and sub-assemblers. In this industry, electronic commerce has been and will continue to be driven by sectorial initiatives and proprietary supply chain platforms. The findings from our case studies indicate that electronic commerce initiatives primarily influence process and relational innovations. Results show that business-to-business electronic commerce is primarily a means to optimize supply chain configurations. The real benefits of electronic commerce come from end-to-end visibility in the supply chain, and from the implementation of demand-pull strategies for all levels of the optical connectivity equipment value chain.