Achieving Competitive Advantage through Supply Chain Integration in the Cocoa Industry: A Case Study of Olam Ghana Limited and Produce Buying Company Limited

Abstract

The problem of partial supply chain integration has been going on with some organizations in Ghana especially in the cocoa industry. The study sort to empirically, examine supply chain integration practices that could lead to improved performance and competitive advantage; as well as major constrains to competitive advantage within the cocoa industry in Ghana. The study envisaged that, the causes of the industry’s inability to integrate supply chain variables and appropriate solutions found; to curtail the problems of poor performance and effectively integrate supply chain functions for the industry to make informed decisions to improve their businesses and gain competitive advantage. The study revealed the relative importance index run on the mean factors that, some of the case companies stood strong in terms of internal integration using the general relative importance index as benchmark. All the factors of customer integration and supplier integration proved to be very important but not much statistically significant difference between the ratings of the case companies. Even though, some were slightly ahead of others. The study further revealed that there was a positive correlation between all the variables of supply chain integration. The ANOVA analysis confirms existing theory that the three aspects of supply chain integration together lead to improved performance and competitive advantage. Finally, the Cocoa industry, particularly PBC and Olam should adopt pragmatic approach to implement all the three aspects of supply chain integration to improve their performance to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in the cocoa industry.