IT-enablement of supply chains: understanding the barriers

Purpose - Information technology (IT) is increasingly being used towards the effectiveness of supply chains. There are, however, some barriers in this process. These barriers influence one another and also adversely affect the IT-enablement of a supply chain. The aim of this paper is to understand these mutual influences so that those barriers which are at the root of few more barriers (called driving barriers) and those which are most influenced by the others (called dependent barriers) are identified. Design/methodology/approach - A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to rank the barriers. Findings - The results of the survey and the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology have been used to evolve the mutual relationships among these barriers. Originality/value - It is observed that there are some barriers, which have both high driving power and dependency and therefore need more attention.