1

Abstract Number: 011-0026

Use of information technologies in retail supply chain: opportunities and

challenges

Ying Xie

Business School, University of Greenwich, Maritime Campus,

London, SE10 9LS UK,

Email: y.xie@gre.ac.uk, Tel: +44 (0)20 83317956

POMS 20th Annual Conference

Orlando, Florida U.S.A.

May 1 to May 4, 2009

Abstract:

The innovation in Information Technologies (IT) and their uses in the retail supply

chain increase the efficiency of the whole system itself. Radio Frequency

Identification (RFID), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Point of Sales (POS), and

various Data Mining (DM) technologies enable retailers to radically change the way

they do business within the retail supply chain, and achieve increased supply chain

efficiency in terms of labour cost reduction, inventory accuracy improvement, lead

time reduction, and order fill rate increment.

2

The paper aims to offer an outline of the characteristics of these technologies and

identify the opportunities of adopting these technologies in helping retail sectors to

improve supply chain efficiency and customer relationship as a result of refined

operation system. While it is clear that the path to adoption will have its challenges.

Literature survey is adopted in the paper, where literature is reviewed to develop

outline of characteristics and identify opportunities and challenges.

Keywords: EDI, POS, RFID, Data Mining, retail supply chain

1. Introduction

Nowadays, retailers are facing increased competition and more demanding

customers, and they are in the race of improving their performance to be competitive

in the global market. However, retailers’ performance is affected by all the

participants in the retail Supply Chain (SC), including their suppliers and Distribution

Centres (DC) (Ellram et al., 1999). All the participants in the SC are required to work

collaboratively to compete in the global market by multiple competitive objectives

such as price, quality, responsiveness, flexibility and dependability. Information

Technologies (IT) plays a vital role in improving information sharing and

coordination in SC (Love, 1996). The rapid development of IT enables the

participants in SC to receive and disseminate the electronic information rapids, helps

to improve the information accuracy and reliability, and in turn provides a

competitive positioning of the SC participants like shorter lead time, lower stockout,

quicker response and lower costs. IT has been increasingly implemented in SC

3

management for strategic planning, virtual enterprise, E-commerce and knowledge

management (Gunasekaran and Ngai, 2004). In retail SC, E-commerce take a variety

of forms such as EDI, Internet, Intranet, Extranet, Web based POS. Lancioni et al.

(2000) discussed how the Internet helps to manage SC activities by offering

information about what kind of product is demanded, what is available in the

warehouse, what is in the manufacturing process and what is entering and exiting the

physical facilities and customer sites. Weber and Kantamneni (2002) examined the

underlying factors why retailers adopt POS and EDI, indicating these technologies

achieve operational, tactical and strategic effects effects (Dearing, 1990, Chartfield

and Yetton, 200).

In addition to POS and EDI, RFID and DM are increasingly used in retail SC for

various purposes. RFID has the potential to offer tighter management and control of

the retail SC, reductions in shrinkage, labour cost and improvement in customer

service (Jones, et al., 2005(b)). DM is a power tool for retail SC management in

reducing risk level of business, controlling inventory, predicting customer’s behaviour

and improving customer relationship management (CRM) (Kusiak, 2006).

Retailers have enjoyed the benefits of these IT in terms of improved supply chain

efficiency and customer relationship as a result of refined operation system. While it

is clear that the path to adoption will have its challenges. In order to provide a clear

picture for the retailers when adopting the IT technologies, the paper aims to outline

the functionalities and features of the various IT approaches, and demonstrate how the

4

retailers can benefit from the adoptions of these IT technologies. Furthermore, the

opportunities and challenges in adopting the IT technologies are identified.

By reviewing the existing literature, the functionalities and features of EDI, POS,

RFID and DM are summarised in Section 2. A framework of the opportunities and

challenges of adopting these IT technologies is provided in Section 3. Finally,

conclusions are presented in Section 4.

2. Functionalities and features of IT technologies

The applications of the IT technologies in retail SC are increasing. POS is widely

adopted by the retail store to sell products to customers (as shown in Figure-1); EDI

are used between the SC participants for data exchange; RFID is mainly used

warehouses for data capture; and DM is adopted in the back office for knowledge

discovery. Figure-1 provides a picture for the adoptions of these IT technologies in

the retail SC, and their functionalities and features will be reviewed in the following

sections.

Figure-1 The IT technologies adopted in a retail SC

5

Electronic data interchange (EDI)

Electronic data interchange (EDI) defined as computer-to-computer transmission of

standardised business transitions (Walton and Marucheck, 1997), and it is becoming a

growing technology of information transfer system from retailer’s computers to

supplier’s computer throughout the retail supply chain. EDI was introduced to use by

the trucking industry in the early 1970s and since then has been widely adopted by

many other business sectors (Pawar and Driva, 2000).

EDI is highly accurate and very efficient to collect information over the internet

and facilitates a company to speed up their transaction and order process. By sharing

customer sales figure and forecast EDI can enhanced its planning and control to a

lower inventories with timely information (Bamfield, 1994). EDI is mainly used to

place electronic purchase orders; generating bills of lading/freight bills and invoices;

transmitting sales/inventory data, and giving advanced shipping notice.

Two features set EDI apart from other ways of exchanging information: 1) EDI

only works for business-to-business transactions, and individual consumers do not

directly use EDI to purchase goods or services; 2) EDI involves transactions between

computers or databases, not between individuals. Therefore, individuals sending

e-mail messages or sharing files over a network does not constitute EDI.

Along the booming development of Internet, it is expected that there will be a

rapid move to deliver EDI via the Internet. This would happen rapidly and could

allow more widely distributed participation.

6

Point of sales (POS)

Point of sale (POS) came into use from the early 1980s onwards (Jones, 1985),

and it facilitates product sale to the customer by entering and accessing of product in

store. POS enables dynamic update of item sales and inventory data as sales occur. It

is widely used for store level transactions; credit/check cashing authorization; credits,

refunds and exchange issues; promotional inventory tracking; item and prices look

ups, sales tax calculation and reporting; and dynamic accounts receivable updating.

An integrated POS system allows quick, precise information capture so that the

logistics system can act more efficiently and effectively in getting the right product to

preferred location when it is needed (Ellram et al. 1999). It’s a total process to track

down a product’s direct cost (Cassidy, 1994). The growth in availability of POS

data is critical for integrating participants in the retail SC and especially for improving

forecasting accuracy and reducing lead time. By making the POS data more widely

available by retailers for use by other SC participants (e.g., suppliers), the higher

degree of collaboration can be achieved in the SC (Power, 2003).

An updated Web-based POS is becoming prevalent due to its powerful features.

Eliminating the hassles of software and hardware, Web-based POS is built to run

entirely on the World Wide Web through the web browser, and easy to use. The retail

stores are networked together via the Web-based POS, allowing the company to track

customer purchases, employee’s commissions, create employee schedules, create

purchase orders, process credit cards, view sales reports and save time/money to

expand businesses.

7

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

Radio frequency identification (RFID) was traced back to 1940s for the military

application, and in 1980s emerges to be a significant generator of new or enriched

business information that has led to a range of organisation benefits. It is the generic

name for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify and track objects.

RFID identifies the items using a tag, which is made up of a microchip with a coiled

antenna, and a reader with an antenna. A wide range of product information is

transmitted when the tag is read by the reader, including the identification of the

product, location details, price, and date of manufacturing/transportation/purchase.

According to (Singh, 2003), RFID technology has the capacity to capture some 40

times more information than barcode technology.

RFID is working as an information facilitator that can directly develop the

decision making capabilities of personnel within an organisation (Sellitto et al. 2007).

The main difference between RFID and the barcode technology are the data exchange

and scanning process. RFID can track the quantity of the items without scan on site

and send the information to the receiver located in the retailer’s warehouse, which

makes the system more versatile and productive. The features of RFID technology are

real time data capture, automating data capture, enhancing information quality, and

supporting business transactions. These features facilitate the information collection

and allow more informed and accurate decisions to be made throughout a company.

The use of RFID technology in all aspects of the supply chain is important for these

reasons.

8

Data Mining (DM)

Data Mining (DM) was born in 1989 IJCAI (International Joint Conference on

Artificial Intelligence) workshop on knowledge discovery in database, and is the

process of extracting or mining knowledge from large amount data in such a way to

build predictive models for management decision making (Han and Kamber, 2000).

In general, companies using computers to capture details of business transactions such

as banking record, retail sales and manufacturing warranty (Lee and Siau, 2001). As

long as a transaction finished, all information goes to data warehouse where the

database implement and analyser has to explore and analyse the total business

situations.

The features of DM are mining knowledge from large databases, and work for

executives involved in strategic and tactical decision making as well as operating

managers responsible for cost reduction. DM is used to make strategic decisions like

developing competitive strategies, identifying market opportunities, launching new

product launch, and product positioning. Tactical decisions are made for sales

forecasting, direct marketing, customer acquisition, retention and extension purposes

and marketing campaign analysis. Alongside, operational managers can use similar

data for decisions on supplier selection, production schedule, inventory control,

logistics provider selection, and transportation route.

In retail store, loyalty card system is introduced where customer will get rewarded

with their shopping. Therefore, DM plays an important role in retailer, especially in

customer relationship management (CRM), allowing retailers to gain knowledge and

9

understanding of consumer behaviour (Byrom, 2001), and to segment their customer

base and to tailor products and services to the needs and purchasing power of

individual groups of customers. DM is a powerful tool for retail SC management, and

can be used in the five areas: 1) reducing the level of risk to business by checking the

customer’s credit history (Kusiak, 2006); 2) refining inventory levels to reduce

stockout or overstock (Lee and Siau, 2001); 3) forecasting customer demand and

behaviour by analysing customers’ performance in the past (Kusiak, 2006, Katsaras,

et al., 2001); 4) improving CRM by providing a deep understanding of customer

behaviour and needs (Kusiak, 2006); and 5) optimising marketing strategies (Katsaras,

et al., 2001), in which marketing actions are targeted to the potential clients most

likely to buy, based on an analysis of customer preferences, customer demographics,

market baskets and customer loyalty programmes (Herman, 1997). With the

overwhelming use of Web browsers and online shopping, DM adapts the Internet

technology to facilitate suggestive selling (Lee and Siau, 2001), i.e., provide a

targeted banner campaign or promotion, then to report behavioural data about Web

visitors, finally help make better online business decisions.

In essence, DM helps businesses to optimise their processes in such a way that

their customers receive the most relevant services, the costs of serving them are

proportionate to the value of the profits earned from them, and a company’s

exposure to risk is proportionate to premiums earned, etc.

10

3. Opportunities and challenges of adopting IT technologies

The great functionalities and features of implementing these IT technologies bring

the companies opportunities to improve performances, however, the adoption of them

are still complicated and costly. Much research has discussed the benefits and

obstacles of adopting these IT technologies, for example, Murphy and Daley (1999)

summarised previous logistics research intro the benefits and barriers of EDI; Jun and

Cai (2001) investigated key EDI obstacles to EDI success; and Jones, et al. (2005 (b))

briefly discussed some of the benefits and challenges of RFID for food retailers in UK.

Based on the literature survey and authors’ own research, this section identifies the

opportunities and challenges faced by the retail SC when adopting the four IT

technologies, as shown in Table 1.

11

Table-1 opportunities and challenges of IT technologies applied in retail SC

IT

technologies

Opportunities Challenges

EDI

Quick access to information (Ferguson et al.,

1990);

Decreased administrative and transaction

cost (Vijayasarathy and Tyler, 1997, Murphy

and Daley, 1999);

Improved communications and information

accuracy (Ferguson et al., 1990, Murphy and

Daley, 1999);

Improved cash flows (Murphy and Daley,

1999);

Increased productivity (Ferguson et al.,

1990);

Improved tracing and expediting (Ferguson

et al., 1990);

Better customer service (Angeles et al.,

1998);

Enhanced competitiveness (Iacovou et al,

1995)

Incooperation between parters (Ellram et al.,

1999; Jun and Cai, 2003);

Managerial leadership issue: limited

awareness of EDI from top managers

(Monczka and Carter, 1988, Premkumar and

Ramamurthy, 1995, Tuunaiene, 1998);

Technical issue: Incompatibility of

hardware/software (Hendon et al, 1998,

Murphy and Daley, 1999);

Human resource issue: insufficient education

and training for users (Banerjee and Golha,

1994);

Security issue: disclosure of information

(Banerjee and Golha, 1993);

Legal issue: agreement on terms and

conditions of EDI use (Aggarwal et al., 1998)

POS

reduced check-out time and error (Cassidy,

1994);

improved inventory management (Weber and

Kantamneni, 2002);

increased traceability;

improve collaboration between partners

lack of sufficient resources;

insufficient technological capability;

lack of management commitment to

technology adoption;

lack of trust between retailer and supplier

(Czinkota and Kotabe, 1992).

RFID

Improve information quality, accuracy,

relevancy, completeness (Jones et al,

2005(a));

Improve business responsiveness and

customer service (Jones et al, 2005(a));

Reduce operation cost (Jones et al., 2005(b));

Optimize the assets (Jones et al., 2005(b));

Reduce shrinkage (Jones, et al., 2004);

Enhance warehouse space use (Jones, et al.,

2004);

Increase traceability (Jones et al., 2005(a))

Customer privacy (Park, 2003);

Managing data generated by RFID (Jones, et

al., 2004);

Defective tags (Sellitto et al. 2007);

Training on users (Jones, et al., 2004).

DM

Intelligent marketing strategies (Forcht and Cochran, 1999) Supply chain management (Forcht and Cochran, 1999); End-to-end optimization or redesign of

business processes (Folorunso and Ogunde,

2005);

Scalability: Very high data volumes and data

flow rates;

Efficient algorithms to handle multiple

complex data types (Kohavi et al., 2004)

Data extraction, cleaning, and consolidation

from many sources (Lee and Siau, 2001);

Mining at different abstraction levels (Lee

and Siau, 2001);

Interactive, web mining (Shaw et al., 2001);

Privacy and data security (Lee and Siau,

2001)

12

EDI

EDI gives a choice to the organisation to replace traditional modes of exchanging

documents such as purchase orders, invoices, order confirmation and payment, so that

business transactions to occur in less time and with fewer errors than do traditional,

paper-based means. In this way, inventory level companies must invest in can be

reduced and just-in-time delivery can be adopted. By getting rid of paper forms, EDI

also reduces postage costs and the expenses and space considerations involved in

paper-based record storage (Ferguson et al., 1990, Murphy and Daley, 1999). By

adopting EDI, many companies have seen dramatic improvements in their business

processes, such as the shortened lead time, reduced stock out, accelerated response, as

well as improved demand forecasting. Elimination of labour intensive task, paper

documentation and improved stock control stimulate the adoption of EDI

(Vijayasarathy and Tyler, 1997).

In addition, EDI is important in the retail SC since it facilitates frequency and

automatic transfer of information required for integration and coordination ( Hill and

Scudder, 2002), and improves information accuracy by eliminating data re-entering,

which result in improved communication between suppliers and buyers (Murphy and

Daley, 1999). Improved communication and better stock control reduces order lead

time and provides customers timely information about transaction status, thus

improves customer service (Angeles, et al., 1998). With the EDI, funds can be paid or

received more quickly to improved cash flow and allow companies to make

investments more efficiently (Murphy and Daley, 1999), and a win-win partnership

can be fostered between suppliers and retailers to increase competitiveness (Iacovou

et al., 1995). However, “suppliers and retailers must work together to implement

compatible systems in order to realise the benefits of EDI’ (Ellram et al., 1999).

13

One of the challenges in implementing EDI is to get participants in retail SC to

use EDI and to reach an agreement on terms associated with EDI use (Jun and Cai,

2003). For this purpose, the people in top management need to have understanding of

functionalities, features, and key benefits of EDI. The support from top management

plays a vital role in successful EDI implementation (Monczka and Carter, 1988,

Premkumar and Ramamurthy, 1995, Tuunaiene, 1998). In the process of

implementation, it is a difficulty task to fully integrate EDI into a company’s existing

computer system (Hendon et al, 1998, Murphy and Daley, 1999); and the other

challenge is lack of sufficient education and training for the managers and users to use

EDI (Banerjee and Golha, 1994). Implementing EDI will incur security and legal

issues. Without improvement and integration both parties in EDI transactions are not

fully efficient and cannot control cost. Some company emphasise their object to

reduce inventory cost but on the other hand they incurred more administrative cost.

EDI technology pull electronically transmitted orders into the central computer

system by its software programmes which lead sometimes a mix up with the retail’s

products code and manufacturer code and it means inconsistent delivery of that item

(Bamfield, 1994). The disclosure of information, modification of message and

repudiation of message origin or receipt can severely damage the communication and

collaboration between trading participants in retail SC. Therefore, it is suggested that

EDI users to make an agreement on the terms and conditions related to EDI use to

avoid legal problems, such as the liability of paying network charges, duration of

contract, the obligations of users, etc (Aggarwal et al., 1998).

POS

Initially POS reduces check out time and error and also improves inventory

management through reducing stock outs, inventory levels, shrinkage, and forced

14

markdowns. Retail organisations get direct benefit adopting POS by facilitating

shorter checkout times and better customer service in store (Cassidy, 1994). Retailers’

emphasis on providing higher inventory related customer levels with fewer

inventories (Weber and Kantamneni, 2002). POS has the ability to offer

improvements in retail store management and customer service by tracking the costs

directly to specific products (Cassidy, 1994) and focusing timeliness and accuracy of

information, which in turn will contribute to generating the purchase orders for the

needed items on time, accurately and within budget. Increasing use of POS data in

retailer and making them available to other SC participants makes pivotal contribution

to the overall SC coordination (Power, 2003).

However, there are challenges arising when implementing POS, and not all the

companies can take the advantages of POS system because upon integrating the

system it needs continuous improvement and some companies do not have sufficient

resources for the improvement. The resources include technical skills equipped staff,

knowledge of improvement, computing network facilities and equipment. If the

management is not technology friendly they would not be able to take the full

advantages of automated system. Because of that companies will seek suppliers using

the same platform, which could be also a limitation of that particular company having

only limited suppliers to choose from. Those problems will lead the company being

uncompetitive in cost effective way. Although the increased sharing POS data by

retailer can improve retail SC performance and coordination, a lack of trust between

retailer and supplier is the critical barrier in achieving this (Czinkota and Kotabe,

1992).

15

RFID

Real time data collection via RFID provides managers the necessary information

of products. Retail industry wants to take control over inventory by keeping its

volume in low-margin because it’s an important factor in profitability. According to

Attaran (2007), ‘Organisations should consider RFID if they want to increase their

revenue growth, lower cost, reduce inventory, better utilise fixed assets and gain

favour over competitors’.

RFID improves information quality in both time-based and content-based

dimensions, therefore, retailers are able to get more accurate, relevant and complete

information about products and customers (Jones et al., 2005(a)). This in turn, will

increase on-shelf availability and improve customer service. By fast and reliable

information transmission, manual inventory costs are eliminated, and transport

efficiently and accuracy are increased, these ultimately lead to better warehouse

management (reduced inventory level, higher inventory visibility) and reduced

operation cost (Jones et al., 2005(b)). Reductions in inventory levels and information

sharing will optimise the assets employed. RFID can reduce shrinkage due to stolen or

missing goods and respond quickly to product request. In addition, RFID improves

the use of warehouse space as goods can be stored in most efficient manner based on

size and shape and automatically tracked (Jones et al., 2005(a)), rather than be

stored according to product type for manual location (Jones et al., 2004).

With the wide rang of benefits that RFID bring to the retail SC, RFID manifest in

revolutionizing retail SC and making longer term strategic based decisions, which

appears to be a beneficial element of RFID adoption.

16

RFID has some limitations. Parker (2003) states that, ‘Caspian - a US shopper’s

rights group has called for worldwide boycott of Gillette for its use of RFID

technology. Because they thought it was going to interfere customers’ personal life’.

The customer’s personal transactional data being held in the RFID tag after the POS

may be misused, accessed unauthorised or disclosed, which is a potential challenge in

adopting RFID.

Price of RFID tag has fallen significantly from 0.5 pound to 0.5 pence since 2000,

but it is still much higher than the bar codes. In addition, the cost of RFID readers,

associated infrastructure, and software that needs to be installed requires big

investment. RFID system will collect massive data, however, large amount of data

storage and transmission will place severe strains on the users’ computer network.

Also internally in RFID, tags and signals can be distorted, absorbed and deflected

by certain types of products like dairy or fresh foods . Extreme temperature or

labelling standards can also impede its usefulness (Sellitto et al. 2007). The actual

performance and capabilities of RFID technology is ever reliant on electronic tag and

reader standards, as well as the ability of business integration software to

inexpensively capture and store RFID-derived data (Rappold, 2003). But using

different types of tag in different palettes will be more challenging for tag reader at

the same time. To avoid collision between readers it has walk down the range of

possible values and several reader needs to read the same tag data to clarify this

information (Lahiri, 2006).

DM

The application of DM techniques facilitates the retail SC participants to make

intelligent marking strategies on market segmentation, market targeting, market

differentiation and positioning (Forcht and Cochran, 1999). By analysing POS data

17

and other research data stored in the database, the marketing managers are able to

segment customer market, evaluate market segments and select target market

segments through knowledge discovery in DM. Marketers are now moving their focus

from producing the right product to targeting the existing products to right customers.

DM can also be used to analyse the effect of changing 4Ps (Price, Product, Promotion

and Place) and market share, and predict which customer group will be most

responsive to the promotion and campaign.

The use of DM is also beneficial for efficient retail SC management, ranging from

procurement, warehouse management and distribution. The database information on

historical orders, price and supplier performance are used by the procurement

department for evaluating and selecting suppliers. DM can analyse the movement of

warehouse stock in relation to product type, product location, shelf space and improve

warehouse management. Information collected from transportation and distribution

can be utilised to facilitate route planning, scheduling and logistics company

selection.

More strategically, DM tools allow the retail SC participants to collect massive

quantities data from multiple resources, and extract the useful and relevant knowledge

from database to redesign and optimise business processes (Folorunso and Ogunde,

2005). DM techniques predict futures and trends, allowing companies to make

proactive and knowledge-driven decisions. In addition, DM can be integrated into the

existing software and hardware platform to enhance the value of the existing

information resources.

DM has many challenges to overcome. Scalability is one of constraints on DM

adoption, as there are usually very high data volumes and data flow rates to be

analysed. For a large retail site, there are around 35000 products, 4.2 billion

18

transactions, tens to hundreds of TeraBytes per year. These data are usually complex

and from multiple resources, and efficient algorithms need to be designed to handle

the multiple data types and generate output that is comprehensible for business insight.

(Kohavi et al., 2004). The users of DM may require different types of information to

be extracted from the database for different purposes, the system should allow the

data to be mined at different levels (Chen et al., 1996).

The process of DM is an interactive learning process in order to discover

knowledge, and the key components of this process include hypotheses formulation,

model evaluation and refinement. It takes rounds of trial and error to prodcue the most

relevant and useful knowledge from vast amount of data. Therefore, how to make this

process efficient and productive is also a challenge of DM.

With the increased use of Internet, Internet is becoming a new product

distribution channel. Business transactions are being completed online, and the web is

emerging as an important and convenient source to collect customer data. However,

the data transmitted and stored in the Web are even more complex and of different

formats and nature, which makes it another challenge to discover, extract, organize

and manage useful knowledge for marketing decision making (Shaw et al., 2001).

Finally, privacy and data security is argued to be a challenge of DM. Different

levels of data can be viewed at different angles from DM, and it is relatively easy to

construct a personal profile using these data (Lee and Siau, 2001).

4. Conclusion and future work

EDI, POS, RFID and DM are the prevalent IT technologies being adopted by the

retail SC to capture data, automate data transmission, increase data transmission speed,

improve data quality, extract knowledge from data and facilitate decision making. The

advent of the IT technologies offers the retail SC many opportunities, and is

19

acknowledged for improving business performance and optimizing business processes.

However, the extent and speed of the adoptions of these IT technologies are impacted

by many challenges. Among them, EDI and POS are more widely implemented in the

retail SC compared with RFID and DM, and this is attributed to high setup cost of

RFID and complexity of DM. The public perceptions and acceptance of the IT

technologies also impacts the decisions of companies. The concerns on privacy and

security issues associated with the IT technologies need to be addressed by the retail

industry to avoid legislation matters.

The case studies are being conducted in the UK major grocery retail industries to

investigate their experiences of adopting these IT technologies. Based on the

findings from the primary research, how to realise the benefits of the IT technologies

in the maximum extent will be the future research.

20

References:

1. Aggarwal R., Rezaee Z., and Soni R. (1998), Internal control considerations

for global electronic data interchange, International Journal of Commerce and

Management, 8 (3-4), 71-84.

2. Angeles R. and Nath R. (2000), The importance of congruence in

implementing electronic data interchange systems, Supply Chain Management:

An International Journal, 5 (4), 198-205.

3. Attaran, M. (2007), RFID: an enabler of supply chain operations, Supply

Chain Management: An International Journal, 12(4), 249-257.

4. Bamfield, J. A. N. (1994), Implementing EDI: Problems in Managing

Retail/Supplier Relationships by Technology, Logistics Information

Management, 7(1), 7-10.

5. Banerjee S. and Golhar D.Y. (1993), Security issues in the EDI environment,

International Journal of Operation & Production Management, 14 (4),

97-108.

6. Byrom, J. (2001), The role of loyalty card data within local marketing

initiatives, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 29(7),

333-341.

7. Chen M.S., Han J., and Yu P. (1996), Data mining: an overview from a

database perspective, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering,

8 (6), 866-883.

8. Cassidy P. (1994), The point of most return, CIO, 1, April, 46-56.

9. Chatfield A.T. and Yetton P. (2000), Strategic payoff from EDI as a function

of EDI embeddedness, Journal of Management Information Systems, 16 (4),

195-224.

21

10. Czinkota M. and Kotabe M. (1992), America’s new world trade order,

Marketing Management, 3 (1), 46-54.

11. Dearing B. (1990), The strategic benefits of EDI, The Journal of Business

Strategy , Jan/Feb, 4-6.

12. Ellram, L. M.; La Londe, B. J. And Weber, M. M., 1999, Retail logistics,

International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 29

(7/8), 477-494.

13. Ferguson D.M., Hill N.C., and Hansen J.V. (1990), Electronic data

interchange: foundations and survey evidence on current use, Journal of

Information Systems, 4, 81-91.

14. Folorunso O. and Ogunde A.O. (2005), Data mining as a technique for

knowledge management in business process redesign, Information

Management & Computer Security, 13(4), 274-280.

15. Gunasekaran A. and Ngai E.W. (2004), Information systems in supply chain

integration and management, European Journal of Operational Research, 159

(2), 269-295.

16. Hendon R., Nath A.R., and Hendon D.W. (1998), The strategic and tactical

value of electronic data interchange for marketing firms, The Mid-Atlantic

Journal of Business, 34 (1), 53-73.

17. Jones P., Clarke-Hill C., Shears P. , Comfort D., and Hiller D. (2004), Radio

frequency identification in the UK: opportunities and challenges, 32 (3),

164-171.

18. Jones P. (1985), The spread of article numbering and retail scanning in Europe,

The Service Industries Journal, 5(3), 273-279.

22

19. Jones P., Clarke-Hill C., Comfort D., Hiller D., and Shears P. (2005), Radio

frequency identification and food retailing in the UK, British Food Journal,

107 (6), 356-360.

20. Han J.W. and Kamber M. (2000), Data mining: concepts and techniques,

Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, ISBN 1-55890-489-8.

21. Herman G. (1997), Data warehousing: transforming customer information into

business intelligence, A financial times management report published and

distributed by FT retail & consumer publishing, 21-137.

22. Hill C.A. and Scuder G.D. (2002), The use of electronic data interchange for

supply chain coordination in the food industry, Journal of Operations

Management 20, 375-387.

23. Iacovou C.L., Benbasat I., and Dexter A.S. (1995), Electronic data interchange

and small organisations: adoption and impact of technology, MIS Quarterly,

19 (4), 465-485.

24. Jones P., Clarke-Hill C., Shears P., Comfort D. and Hillier D. (2004), Radio

frequency identification in the UK: opportunities and challenges, International

Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 32 (3), 164-171.

25. Jones P., Clarke-Hill C., Comfort D., Hillier D. and Shears P. (2005 (a)), The

benefits, challenges and impacts of radio frequency identification technology

(RFID) for retailers in the UK, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 23 (4),

395-402.

26. Jones P., Clarke-Hill C., Comfort D., Hillier D. and Shears P. (2005 (b)),

Radio frequency identification and food retailing in the UK, British Food

Journal, 107 (6), 356-360.

23

27. Jun M. and Cai S. (2003), Key obstacles to EDI success: from the US small

manufacturing companies’ perspective, Industrial Management & Data

Systems, 103 (3), 192-203.

28. Kohavi R., Mason L., Parekh R., and Zheng Z. (2004), Lessons and challenges

from mining retail e-commerce data, Machine Learning, 57 (1-2), 83-113.

29. Kusiak A. (2006), Data mining in design of products and production systems,

Proceedings of INCOM’2006: 12th IFAC/IFIP/IFORS/IEEE Symposium on

Control Problems in Manufacturing, May 2006, Saint-Etienne, France, 1,

49-53.

30. Lahiri, S. (2006), RFID Sourcebook, Pearson Education Inc., U.S.

31. Lancioni, R.A., Smith, M.F., and Oliva, T.A. (2000), The role of the Internet

in supply chain management. Industrial Marketing Research 29 (1), 54–65.

32. Lee. S. J. and Siau, K. (2001), A review of data mining techniques, Industrial

Management & Data System, 101(1), 41-46.

33. Love P.E.D. (1996), Enablers of process reengineering. Proceedings of

International Construction Information Technology Conference, Sydney,

Australia, 18-19 April, 77-84.

34. Monczka R.M. and Carter J.R. (1988), Implementing electronic data

interchange, Journal of Purchasing and Material Management, 24 (2), 26-33.

35. Murphy P.R. and Daley M. J. (1999), EDI benefits and barriers comparing

international freight forwarders and their customers, International Journal of

Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, 29 (3), 207-216.

36. Parker, R. (2003), Supply Management, 4 Sep, 12.

37. Pawar K.S. and Driva H. (2000), Electronic trading in the supply chain: a

holistic implementation framework, Logistics Information Management, 13

(1), 21-32.

24

38. Power D., (2003) Implementation and use of B2B-enabling technologies: five

manufacturing cases, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 16

(5), 554-572.

39. Premkumar G., and Ramamurthy K. (1995), The role of interorganisational

and organisational factors on the decision mode for adoption of

interorganisational systems, Decision Sciences, 26 (3), 303-337.

40. Rappold, J. (2003), The risk of RFID, Industrial Engineer, 35 (11), 37-38.

41. Sellitto, C.; Burgess, S. and Hawking, P., 2007, Information quality attributes

associated with RFID-derived benefits in the retail supply chain, International

Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 35(1), pp. (69-87).

42. Shaw M.J., Subramaniam C., Tan G.w., and Welge M.E. (2001), Knowledge

management and data mining for marketing, Decision Support Systems, 31,

127-137.

43. Singh, N. (2003), “Emerging technologies to support supply chain

management”, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 46 No. 9, pp. 243-7.

44. Tuunainen V.K. (1998), Opportunities of effective integration of EDI for small

businesses in the automotive industry, Information & Management, 34 (5),

361-375.

45. Vijayasarathy, L. R. and Tyler, M. L. (1997), Adoption factors and electronic

data interchange use: a survey of retail companies, International Journal of

Retail & Distribution Management, 25 (9), 286-292.

46. Walton S.V., and Marucheck A.S. (1997), The relationship between EDI and

supplier reliability. International Journal of Purchasing and Materials

Management 33 (3), 30-35.

25

47. Weber, M. M. and Kantamneni, S. P. (2002), POS and EDI in retailing: an

examination of underlying benefits and barriers, Supply Chain Management:

An International Journal, 7(5), 311-317.

48. Katsaras N., Wolfson P., Kinsey J. and Senauer B. (2001), Data mining a

segmentation analysis of US grocery shoppers, working paper 01-01 The retail

food industry centre, University of Minnesota.