Change Management and Supply Chain Management : Employee issues in implementation processes of SCM - The action and re-action related to changes in each stage of an implementation process

Abstract: Competition on today’s market is fierce. Providing a defect-free product is no more a competitive advantage. Now money and focus is put on managing the supply chain, a competitive tool to thriving in today’s business climate. There are two distinct flow pipelines: the order information transfer pipeline and the product transfer pipeline, both dependent on the collaboration efforts of individuals. Evolving within supply chain management equals integrating the supply chain from basic to complex; from baseline or functional to internal or external. Bringing focus to where it is found to be lacking, this literary study highlights and connects issues that may arise during implementation of external supply chain integration. The focal point is thus on employee reactions to change, with each stage of implementation that the implementation issues connect to. Simultaneously, the study provides (pre)requisites to management during the different stages, which would support the implemented transition in its different phases. The result of this study is a Manger Model that gives an overview of each of the implementation stages, the requisites for management and issues regarding employees at each of the stages. Constructed to be applicable to more than just external integration the model encompasses all the gathered models and theories through a discussion of not only the complexity of the internal and the external supply chain, but also the complex nature of the individuals caught within the implementation, both from the manager’s as well as the employee’s point of view.