Nothing has rocked the young field of supply chain management like the emergence of the Internet. While the management of information flows has always been a key aspect of Supply chain management, the rapid growth of web-based information transfer between companies, their suppliers, and their customers has decidedly increased the importance of information management in creating effective supply chains. A business cannot succeed without customers. What’s a product without a customer to buy it, or a service without a customer to serve? It’s how companies use those products and services to get, keep and grow customers that counts. For this reason, the ability to more effectively market to, sell to and serve customers has made its way to the center of corporate strategy. But strategy is only half the success story. It takes Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology to put a strategy to work. Its technology that provides the underlying infrastructure that enables employees to get, keep and grow the customers so vital to success. The thesis describes how the advances in the information systems technology have had a huge impact on the evolution of supply chain management.
