Various stages of a Supply Chain Network (SCN) are governed by the information available at that stage. Factors like lack of communication, unorganized processes, time, and decisions on supply causes problems in SCN. In the SCN, if the stocks with the manufacturer or supplier are greater than the sales, then a problem of bullwhip effect exists in the SCN. The effect magnifies from downstream, i.e., the user end to upstream the supplier end. The bullwhip effect on the supply chain occurs because the demand for goods is obtained by forecasting rather than considering actual consumer demand. This variance can either overestimate or underestimate the demand causing fluctuations. When new products are launched in the market, there is an uncertainty about how it would sell. The success factor is difficult to calculate. However, anticipating success, companies minimize their opportunity losses by ordering more than the required quantity to be sold. There is either an increase or decrease in the inventory during the normal variations of supply and demand. With the knowledge of forecast errors, companies generally tend to keep a margin support through safety stocks. Companies will increase or decrease inventory as and when the demand increases or decreases in the market. This increases the additional inventory on every node in the SCN. There is a possibility of integrating all the entities in the SCN using low cost information communication systems that will provide timely information on a dynamic basis. Generally, huge costs are involved in setting up an IT infrastructure by the company. With the availability of low cost cloud computing services, it is possible to bring down the IT infrastructure cost to the company and the consumers. The companies can set up their supply chain management processes on portals integrated with cloud computing services. Consumers can be provided with information channel to the company’s portal through a cloud platform as it can be done at a very low cost.
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