Application of Analytics in Supply Chain Management from Industry and Academic Perspective

Information and communication technology (ICT) has been the backbone of businesses for some time now. ICT adoption has rendered data availability in vertically connected organizations. In recent times, the rise of analytics has paved the way to rethink the structure and working of vertically connected firms within a supply chain. Big data analytics (BDA) for instance, has become a prominent tool to analyse unstructured data. This study explores the application and benefit of various types of analytics such as descriptive analytics, predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics in the process of supply chain management (SCM). Additionally, the study also looks at ways by which analytics could integrally be included within the SCM curriculum in higher education to prepare future supply chain analyst. Notably, the article is positioned for bridging the gap between the use of analytics in SCM, both from academia and the industry perspective.