Supply chain management(SCM) has been highlighted as a tool to reinforce corporate competence, and service sector employs about eight out of every ten workers in developed countries. Quite a few studies on services sector have been reported, but research to link SCM and service sector has been limited to conceptual and case studies.
This research focuses on supply chain management in the early stages of service life cycle. The research question is what are the distinguished characteristics of supplier development and SCM in capital-intensive service industry where supply chain is quite long and complex as in manufacturing industries.
We look into the issues using the basic framework from manufacturing literature. Our research model is then modified to incorporate the industry characteristics. Exploratory case study was carried out for this research. In-depth interviews and both internal and external information were used throughout the study from three Korean PCS companies(016, 018, 019). Extended case analyses and model modification have been tried to identify the patterns of the supplier development and service supply chain management(SSCM) in the capital-intensive service industry.
The major findings of this research are summarized as follows. First, SCM practices turn out to be affected by the environment variables(strategy, supplier relationship, supplier, supply task). Second, resource characteristics (ownership property, unique technology and experience, financial resources) are found to be very important in shaping the environmental variables. Third, capital-intensive service industry's innovation pattern shows that process innovations precede product innovations, which is quite different from that of manufacturing industry.
