METAVERSE IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT: POSSIBILITIES AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

The global pandemic of 2020-21 resulted in drastic dependence of all the organisations and their chores to internet because of the omnipresent lockdown put across the globe. Digital disruption thrived by the disruptive technologies became an inadvertent part of the companies to be incorporated into their systems during those times. Driven by those circumstances and its performance after put in-place, they realised that it was the need of the hour and the future shall depend mostly on it. While the global supply chains saw a massive setback in their operations, the need arose for finding alternative solutions to the problem. Digital supply chain governed by technologies such as digital twins, cyber-physical systems, internet of things, etc. paved the way forward and led to the enhancement of supply chain effectiveness and supply chain resilience. The next prospect identified was the ever-evolving metaverse, a buzzword which caught everyone’s attention, as to how it will affect and change the course of digital disruption in supply chain management. Novel cutting-edge research and brief application of the technology, supplemented by hefty-amounts of investment, provided improved results with a motivation of expanding the same as the technology adoption and implementation would grow in future. Thus, large-scale organisations saw an opportunity to trap and widen the scope of metaverse adaptability into their systems and allow them to thrive until the desired results were achieved. The dissertation has tried to focus upon the inter-play between metaverse and supply chain management together with the broad categorisation of different types of challenges which occur during metaverse adaptability to supply chain management. The results were obtained by following a qualitative research approach using ISM-MICMAC methodology for establishing the contextual and cross-dependence relationships among the identified key challenges for metaverse technology adoption and implementation across industries.