While there is a strong interest to move towards a fully digitalized and integrated Business to Business (B2B) process, many companies oversee the importance of different aspects that should work together for a successful implemented B2B process. These aspects include alignment of the cross-organizational business process, organizational responsibility assessments, and technological readiness evaluation to reach at a sound digital B2B strategy. Without such a strategy, the business case for digitalizing B2B is not necessarily positive due to for example mismatch between strategy, process and technology, unclear responsibilities, and missing links in the technological infrastructure. Consequently, the investment on digitalization of a B2B process may not result in expected outcomes with over-budget implementations. This paper presents a framework for facilitating digital B2B integration, outlining and elaborating the aspects that should be considered in the digitalization of a supply chain process and information exchange. A case study from the maritime sector is discussed to map an ongoing project for the digitalization of a supply chain sourcing process, in the light of identified aspects. The case study explores the relationship between two suppliers and one manufacturer. They currently rely on an e-mail driven communication for the sourcing of products and have an ongoing incentive to further digitalize their relationship trough integrating an EDI system to their sourcing process. The paper contributes to theory and practice by proposing a holistic framework for digitalization of the supply chain sourcing process and providing insights and learnings from a real-life manufacturing company in this context.

@inproceedings{oscm-2019-457,
  title={Aspects of Digitalizing the Supply Chain Sourcing Process: A Case Study from the Norwegian Industry},
  year={2019},
  author={Johannes Cornelis De Man and Emrah Arica},
  booktitle={Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Operations and Supply Chain Management, Vietnam, 2019},
  doi={10.31387/oscm410146}
}

Johannes Cornelis De Man, Emrah Arica (2019). Aspects of Digitalizing the Supply Chain Sourcing Process: A Case Study from the Norwegian Industry. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Operations and Supply Chain Management, Vietnam, 2019. https://doi.org/10.31387/oscm410146