ABSTRACT
Consumer demand is usually not fulfilled by a single firm, but a supply chain made up of manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and retailers. The emergence of the field of supply chain management reflects the emergence of a sophisticated understanding that to fulfill demand in the most efficient manner possible, supply chain partners must share information and make decisions collaboratively. Each stage of the supply chain incurs costs in the fulfillment of the demand, and rather than considering these costs individually, they should be examined along the supply chain. In a similar manner, environmental and social impact should be examined in an aggregated fashion. Supply chain partners should be selected and evaluated considering not only costs but also environmental and social performance, to ensure that the entire supply chain is responsible. Of course, in this realm of globalization, the importance of the role of Information Systems to gather data on partners (and potential partners) cannot be overemphasized.
