TITLE:
A Systematic Review of Responsive and Efficient Supply Chain: The Proposed Holistic Model
AUTHORS:
Omar Ali Mohammed Alkayid
KEYWORDS:
Responsive SC, Efficient SC, Proposed Holistic Model
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Business and Management,
Vol.13 No.4,
July
14,
2025
ABSTRACT: The new reality has brought to light many competitive conflicts that the world is witnessing in all sectors, so organizations are now facing a set of challenges within the modern supply chain (SC). As the process of improving and developing SC is based on relying on modern methods of continuity and development by enhancing performance, reducing costs, and minimizing time that affects the quality of services provided at the same time. Accordingly, a sustainable SC is one that fully integrates responsive and efficient SC responsible practices into a competitive and successful holistic model. Therefore, this paper mainly aims to systematically review the relationship between responsive and efficient SC, as well as to propose a holistic model combining responsive SC indicators with efficient SC elements. Responsive SC indicators include cost, quality, flexibility, and delivery speed, while efficient SC relates to elements in terms of cost, including inventory, transportation, warehousing, and customer service. In this paper, a systematic review was followed with inclusion and exclusion criteria, as 10 conference and journal articles were reviewed to analyze the relationship between responsive and efficient SC, incorporating data-derived perspectives. The systematic review results revealed that there is a theoretical possibility to combine responsive SC indicators with efficient SC elements, where integrating SC process and activities can lead to building efficiency and superior responsiveness value, and thus achieving outstanding SC performance. In addition, the results found the effectiveness of the holistic model in alleviating the contradictions between responsive and efficient SC, as this model enhances communication and collaboration between different departments and partners within the SC, including suppliers, manufacturers and distributors. Based on these results, this paper recommends the need to work on enhancing the level of sustainability and flexibility of the SC through partnership and alliance between members of SC and the use of information technology and production technology to achieve a high degree of integration between responsive and efficient SC in organizations.