Sustainable Supply Chain through Greater Customer Engagement

Climate change has a worldwide impact, and organisations have the greatest responsibility to make a difference through sustainable development as they have the resources, knowledge and reach. Sustainable supply chain in organisations is the need of the hour for holistic development as supply chain involves host of activities including resource conversion and information sharing to add value to end customer. Sustainable supply chain as a concept has evolved due to customer needs/demands as one of the driving forces. Customer engagement needs inclusion in organisations and is relatively undervalued as a tool to drive continuous improvement in supply chains. This chapter will work to build a case of greater customer engagement in supply chain management through organisational communication, interactions, opinions and feedback of customers. The study develops a case of customer engagement for sustainable supply chain through a research using a semi-structured questionnaire involving in-depth interviews with founders and decision makers in two mid-tier Indian organisations in health care and in chemical sector in India. Sustainable supply chain through customer engagement aids improved customer/stakeholder retention or loyalty resulting to economic development, positive image building, innovation and better resource utilisation.