Sustainable Supply Chain Management And Competitive Advantage For Manufacturing Companies In Mogadishu, Somalia

Abstract

Manufacturing companies in Mogadishu are facing considerable challenges from customers, and they are forced to adopt SSC. Customers are becoming aware of the social and environmental problems caused by manufacturing companies using traditional supply chain management, which does not concentrate on social and environmental aspects, so manufacturing companies are finding it difficult to effectively and efficiency respond to customer needs with their traditional supply chain network. The study sought to determine the effect of sustainable supply chain management and competitive advantage for manufacturing companies in Mogadishu, Somalia. The study was guided by the following specific objectives; to examine the extent to which SSCMP are implemented by manufacturing companies in Mogadishu; to determine the relationship between SSCMP and competitive advantage for manufacturing companies in Mogadishu and to establish barriers faced by manufacturing companies of Mogadishu in implementing SSCMP. The study adopted a descriptive design targeting 33 manufacturing firms in Mogadishu Somalia. A census was used and thus the sample size was 33 firms and respondents covered the supply chain officers, procurement officers, and logistic officers. Primary data was collected with the help of questionnaires and the analysis was done using means, standard deviations and regression analysis. The study found out that Supplier integration and collaborations in SSCM are the significant components of SSCM followed by reverse logistics and lastly green manufacturing. Supplier integration, green manufacturing, collaboration in SSCM and reverse logistics all have positive and significant relationship with competitive advantage. The barriers in implementation of SSCM include limited budgets and the fact that it requires investment in sophisticated technologies and specific skills sets. The study recommends that all manufacturing firms in Mogadishu, Somalia should give more focus on supplier integration and collaborations in SSCM since they are significant components of SSCM. Since SSCM has positive relationship with competitive advantage, the study recommends that all manufacturing firms should invest in supplier integration; collaborations reverse logistics and green manufacturing. Manufacturing firms should allocate more funds towards SSCM for competitive advantage. This study was limited to manufacturing firms, this is a limitation because it would be hard to generalize the findings to other sectors for instance the service sector which differs from the manufacturing sector in terms of scope. Additionally, the study was limited to only manufacturing firms in Mogadishu, Somalia. It would therefore be hard to replicate the same findings in other contexts like Kenya since the operating environment is not same. Future studies should cover similar studies in more than one country for comparative purpose. In the current study, SSCM was investigated in relation to competitive advantage, future studies should be done focusing on other aspects like organizational performance.”