Firms today are striving to achieve competitive advantage over others and one of the approaches is managing the entire supply chain in order to reduce costs and improve performance which leads to business success. Logistics and Supply Chain Management (SCM) practices are a set of activities undertaken to promote effective and efficient management of supply chains in the industries. These practices include supplier partnership, physical movement of goods, meeting customer demands and also information sharing throughout the supply chain. Some of the key logistics and SCM practices which impact the supply chain performance are related to estimation of customer needs, efficient and effective delivery, integration and collaboration throughout the supply chain, sharing of information and vision by using Information Communication Technology (ICT). All these practices impact logistics and supply chain performance. Logistics focuses on activities inside a company, while supply chain focuses on relationship between each company.

Logistics and Supply Chain Management (SCM) practices are usually used at operational, tactical and strategic levels in the manufacturing, automotive, healthcare and retail industries. These industries can be benefitted through the comprehensive and integrated practices of logistics and SCM by delivering a consistently reliable and high quality service at the best costs. The present paper intends to focus on how various logistics and supply chain practices have been used to reduce costs and to gain the competitive advantage in the select industries of Tirupati.

Literature Review

John et al. (2006) critically assessed the current developments in the theory and practices of SCM. Their study revealed that SCM is the best and still emergent in terms of both theory and practice. The range of key barriers and enablers to SCM has been identified and concluded with an assessment of the main trends. Li et al. (2004) provided managers of SCM with a useful tool for evaluating the comprehensiveness of their current SCM practices in a firm. Their findings supported the view that SCM practices can have evident impact on the competitive advantage and organizational performance. Sukati et al. (2011) conducted a research with the aim to add knowledge on SCM practices by exploring the relationship between strategic supplier partnership, customer relationship, information sharing and supply chain responsiveness. Their findings have shown that managers should improve information sharing effectively, so that competitive advantage of supply chain can be increased to improve the firm performance.

Supply Chain Management Journal, Logistics and Supply Chain Management (SCM), Industries of Tirupati, Information Communication Technology (ICT), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Logistics, SCM Practices.