Digital supply chain characterization: A review of the definition and main benefits

Digitalization is overwhelming in every aspect of modern businesses. Already widespread and widely adopted by companies in the manufacturing sector, the Industry 4.0 paradigm is increasingly affecting all the firm’s processes and, in particular, supply chain management. Often, one of the main expected goal for the companies after the implementation of the Industry 4.0 technologies is making the supply chains “digital”. The impact of 4.0 technologies can be easily recognized in changing supply chain structure: the chain becomes an integrated actors’ network, allowing for more effective information sharing and ensuring the end-to-end visibility, necessary in today's context. This change creates a global ecosystem where information travels quickly and easily in all directions, among all stakeholders. This new structure, which goes beyond the traditional linear one, makes the supply chain faster and more flexible, increasing its responsiveness and reliability. These last features are crucial in the current environment where customers’ expectations are continually rising, and meeting them is the only way to survive in a highly competitive world. This is how the Digital Supply Chain (DSC) concept was born; although it is still in its infancy, it is starting to be a topic of relevant interest to many academics who are focusing on it. This paper aims to give an unambiguous definition of this new concept, highlighting its characteristics, and showing the benefits brought by the digitalisation of supply chains. In particular, eight typical characteristics of the modern chains are presented, showing how these bring important benefits to companies that implement this strategy. This article can also be taken as a starting point for further research, for example, to identify benefit clusters, linking them to roles or areas within a company or for a possible quantitative study in terms of cost savings.