Is advanced technical functionality enough? - Value creation in a complex warehouse management system investment : Lessons learned about the implication of resources, roles and interactions

• Main Author: Lidström, John
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen 2013
• Subjects: supply chain management; warehouse management system; value creation; service logic
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-202334

Supply chain management complexity is a growing challenge for a broad range of contemporary companies, which makes them turn to new and increasingly advanced IT-systems as a salvation. One of the currently most important system in a supply chain manager’s toolbox is the warehouse management system. As business challenges increases so does also the complexity in the investment processes surrounding the warehouse management systems, this paper explores value creation in these processes to understand the resource exchanges involved, the exchange actor’s different roles and the implications of interactions between the actors. This is conducted through a case study with a market leading warehouse management system vendor and a supply chain intensive customer. The findings indicate that value creation in a complex warehouse management system investment entails several intervened and ongoing processes of different resource exchanges, were the actors co-create value jointly by sharing, combining and utilizing the resources throughout these processes. In order to establish this essential value co-creation sphere, also social exchanges in the form of qualitative interactions between the actors have proven to be a fundamental factor.