Electronic supply chain management tools in international business: Evidence from Austrian food clusters

Vlachos, Ilias, Skoumpopoulou, Dimitra and Gutnik, Sandra (2014) Electronic supply chain management tools in international business: Evidence from Austrian food clusters. In: E-commerce platform acceptance: Suppliers, Retailers, and Consumers. Springer, London, pp. 3-22. ISBN 978-3319061207

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Abstract

This research aim is to examine the electronic supply chain management tools in international business. The study investigates Austrian food clusters and discusses how business strategy can use e-business to support the development of new markets.

The research comprised three case studies demonstrating examples of Austrian small and medium sized companies (SMEs) in the food and beverage industry already deploying e-business solutions in order to foster sales. In this context, risks and benefits of e-business tools as well as the potential advantages of a food cluster membership have been extracted. The findings of this research show agreement with the literature review in terms of the limited use of advanced e-business tools to sell food produce, risks and obstacles perceived by the companies in the area of food safety, legal requirements, available know-how and costs of implementation. However, the findings also demonstrate potential benefits of e-business tools SMEs could leverage in order to foster the creation of virtual alliances and to increase export sales to new and/or niche foreign markets. We provide recommendations which can be of use to SMEs in the food and beverage industry, the food clusters or other dedicated co-operations in Austria, the government and industry associations to direct their efforts towards a more advanced e-business strategy in this industry.

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