Journal of Enterprise Information Management

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to examine economic approaches to evaluate different cooperation scenarios in the context of Supply Chain Management.

Design/methodology/approach – The value of different cooperative scenarios is analyzed in the fields of procurement and distribution planning using an analytical approach as well as simulation runs.

Findings – On the basis of the framework of Wyner and Malone coordination mechanism in the field of Supply Chain Management was examined. Using an analytical approach as well as simulation runs it can be shown that the centralized coordination scenarios usually lead to superior results compared with different decentralized approaches in the field of procurement planning and distribution planning.

Originality/value – Empirical data show that the difficulty in quantifying cooperation benefits is the main reason for not to implementing inter-organizational software solutions such as Supply Chain Management software. Therefore, a prototype is developed to quantify the value of cooperation in the fields of procurement planning and distribution planning.