Identifying and prioritizing contributing factors in supply chain competitiveness by using PLS-BWM techniques (case study: Payam shoes company)

In the growing economy of Iran, supply chain competitiveness (SCC) is one of the strongest tools and best solutions to the problems faced by organizations in this competitive environment. The main aim of this research is to Identifying and prioritizing contributing factors in supply chain competitiveness in footwear industry. Data were collected from 82 employees, experts and managers of Payam shoes firm and examined the impact of four different factors Including green supply chain management, supply chain partnership, sustainable approach to supplier segmentation and knowledge management process capability on supply chain competitiveness. To analyze the data and testing the proposed model in statistical phase of research, partial least squares (PLS) method, and to prioritizing contributing factors in supply chain competitiveness in operational research phase of research, BWM technique (one of the new techniques of multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods) was used. The salient features of the proposed method, compared to the existing MCDM methods, are: (1) requiring less comparison data; (2) leading to more consistent comparisons and more reliable results. The results of statistical phase of research indicate that “supply chain partnership”, “knowledge management process capability”, “green supply chain management” and “sustainable approach in supplier selection and segmentation” have a significant positive effect on supply chain competitiveness. The results of prioritizing contributing factors in supply chain competitiveness by using BWM indicate that “supply chain partnership” is the most important factor in supply chain competitiveness and after that “knowledge management process capability” was located in second priority. Finally some practical strategies for managers are discussed and some suggestions for future research are provided