Four C's in Supply Chain Management: Research Issues and Challenges

Today's business environments are dynamic where one supply chain is competing with another. These supply chains come across different types of interactions at various levels in order to get benefitted. These interactions are helpful in establishing alliances. Further, the interactions also called interrelationships are stated as Coordination (C), Cooperation (C), Collaboration (C) and Co-opetition (C). We call these alliances as various C's used for the typology of supply chain configuration. In this paper we have come up with major research issues and factors affecting an alliance interaction and challenges that appear to restrict the partners to get benefit through various C's. Also, in this paper, we address the important role played by C's in complex supply chains. This paper also discusses the benefits associated with the 4 C's and provides a platform for the organizations to establish alliances.