Collaboration planning in a supply chain

Purpose To analyze how e‐collaboration tools affect different partners along the supply chain, and to categorize firms according to their level of collaboration planning within a supply chain environment. Design/methodology/approach First, a field study, which focuses on one large telecommunications equipment manufacturer and a few strategic first‐tier suppliers, provides the basis to fully understand the e‐collaboration methods and the various issues and concerns of the different members of the supply chain. It is followed by an electronic survey conducted with 53 firms worldwide acting in the same supply chain, which constitutes the second phase of the study. Findings Different roles may be attributed to collaboration tools such as facilitating access to information, which affects knowledge creation capabilities, and assisting in the design of flexible supply chains. Furthermore, three separate groups with different levels and types of collaboration planning were identified. These groups appropriately represent the telecommunications equipment supply chain, where firms are either deeply involved in supply chain collaboration or very minimally concerned by it. Research limitations/implications By focusing on the initial stage of CPFR, we might overlook some important links with the other two stages of CPFR. However, with a more focused approach, we were able to obtain detailed information on the collaborative planning stage. A second limitation is the selection of one specific supply chain, which makes the generalization to other supply chains difficult. Practical implications Understanding the role of CPFR in their supply chain and, more importantly, the role of collaboration planning in developing a network of partners. Originality/value This paper looks at how collaboration is planned, through CPFR actions, between members of a supply chain.