INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN LOGISTICS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION FOR COMPETITIVENESS IMPROVEMENT OF COMPANIES
Fundamental changes have occurred in today’s economy. These changes alter the relationship we have with our customers, our suppliers, our business partners and our colleagues. IT developments have presented companies with unprecedented opportunities to gain competitive advantage. So IT investment is the pre-requisite thing for each firm in order to sustain in the market. The cost of information is decreased due to the increasing rate of technologies. In an integrated supply chain where materials and information flow in a bi-directional, Manager needs to understand that information technology is more than just computers. As computing power has grown and prices have dropped, sophisticated computer resources are now within reach of even the smallest organization. Information transfer can occur instantaneously, not only within single organizations, but also between them. This capability means that data are captured and analyzed more quickly, leading to better decision making. This work aims to study the influence of Information Technologies on the competitiveness of logistics companies. That is, it intends to analyse if the adoption of Information Technologies contributes to improve costs, time and customer service. To attain this objective a content analysis methodology is used. Results indicate that there is a positive relation between the adoption of technologies, namely RFID and the competitiveness of companies. Radio frequency identification utilizes a small transmitter to send radio frequencies from pallets and cases that allow those items to be instantaneously located by the customer or the carrier [16]. As the information technologies have been considered very important for businesses it is crucial to improve our understanding on the main advantages associates with them and their contribution for competitiveness improvement of companies and supply chains, so this paper represents an important contribution for academics in this field.