An inter-organisational decision support system for global supply chain management

The success of global supply chain management often rests on the information sharing capabilities of trading partners in the global business network. As such, inter-organisational collaboration, which can facilitate cross-organisational information sharing, is essential for global supply chain management. To enhance inter-organisation collaboration, multinational firms (MNFs) should nurture corporate culture that encourages the real-time exchanges of business intelligence about foreign markets and customer behaviours through a series of information and communication technology (ICT). One of the useful tools for creating such culture is an inter-organisational decision support system (IODSS) that can coordinate and synchronise the flow of information across the global supply chain, while increasing business intelligence capabilities. As such, today's DSS should undergo dramatic metamorphoses on a global scale. This paper synthesises the evolution of IODSS over the last few decades, develops a basic architecture of IODSS, and then suggests practical guidelines for its successful implementation in global business environments.