Reengineering the Supply Chain Using Collaborative Technology: Opportunities and Barriers to Change in the Building and Construction Industry

Inter-organizational collaborative technologies provide potential competitive benefits based on time and cost advantages and value addition, especially when combined with supply chain reengineering. The building and construction industry would appear to be an ideal candidate for such IT-enabled reengineering because operations and project delivery are primarily organized around networks of collaborating organizations. This qualitative study of the Australian building and construction industry, however, finds a very low level of IT adoption. In explaining this phenomenon, we identify industry-level conditions as important factors influencing the low level of IT-based collaboration and suggest industry-level interventions which could stimulate both IT adoption and associated supply chain reengineering.