Information Technologies to improve Supply-Chain Management strategies: what else?

In this paper we report on a EU funded project named "Supply Chain Partnership", a pilot project aimed at analyzing the communication, social and technological obstacles to the implementation of effective Supply Chain Management strategies in SMEs. The project involves partners from three European countries; the focus of this paper is on the Italian experience, and concerns two industrial districts located in Sicily: the marble industry and the clothing industry. The authors have performed an in-depth investigation of the obstacles to the development of relationships that are required for the implementation of effective SCM strategies in these two specific economic realities. IT - by reducing the geographical distance between Sicily and the most industrialized part of the country - have proved extremely useful to foster the development of SCM strategies; however, IT are not the solution by themselves. Actually, the social factors underpinning the relational and communication interfaces between SMEs and other important subjects, made even worse by the geographical distance between the different parts of the added-value chain, have proved the main obstacle to the boosting of SCM strategies in Sicily.