Security issues are continuing to hamper European companies'
adoption of Internet-based supply chain management.
According to research from IDC, users remain to be convinced
that they can put sufficient security measures in place before
opening up corporate systems to members of their supply chain.
Another issue, IDC suggested, is that larger supply chain
management buyers in Europe have had to deal with a large amount of
smaller organisations in the supply chain that are prepared to use
electronic data interchange (EDI) as their main business channel,
but prefer not to use the Internet.
Their reluctance is based on their perception that the Internet
remains insecure.
While supply chain service providers are keen to work on
Internet-based supply chain management, they have had to respect
buyer reluctance.
Eventually, as security concerns diminish and supply chain
management via the Internet takes off, the major concerns might
come from service providers themselves who may not have enough
staff resources to meet demand the survey suggested.
