The Service Paradox: Supporting Service Supply Chains with Product-oriented ICT

The dominant models of supply chain management have a strong product orientation, with service supply chain models only starting to appear. The technologies used in existing supply chains generally aim at improving production and logistical operations by increasing their efficiencies and by linking and integrating collaboration between individual supply chain partners. This paper focuses on service supply chains and argues that despite their increasing importance, current information and communication technologies (ICTs) fail to fully support the specific needs of service co-production. The paper reviews current technology use from a service perspective and concludes that even the most advanced technologies that have huge potential to support services (such as RFID) remain product-oriented. It argues that such technologies should be deployed in ways that can support the service logic and identifies the danger that unreflected ICT use may pose for the pragmatic utility of ICT use in service-supply