From supply to demand to demand supply chain management: a literature review

This paper reviews the literature on supply chain management and contributes a set of findings that capture the state-of-the-art in the field. A total of 194 articles published in the last three decades on supply chain management and related topics have been systematically reviewed according to the year of publication, focus of the study and research method employed. The findings reveal that, to adapt to the ever changing business environment and advancement in technology, design and management of a supply chain has gone through a few major changes in focus ranging from cost cutting to value creation to total integration. Supply chain design has evolved from the product categorization approach, the one-size-fits-all lean or agile solution, to the latest dynamic network alignment model. Similarly, research on managing a supply chain has also undergone a few paradigm shifts with the attention placed mainly on the supply side (supply chain management) at the beginning, then on the demand side (demand chain management), and lately on integration and alignment of all involved business functions (demand supply management). This study may provide reference to researchers who wish to understand the development of research in supply chain management and guideline to practitioners in the supply chain management community for strategy formulation and decision making.