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1. Introduction
The production and delivery of products or services in a timely fashion and at a minimum total cost is one the critical objectives for many companies (Christopher, 2016). The adoption of lean management practices strategies can yield positive outcomes, but the global supply chains of today are not sufficiently responsive to satisfy the requirements for short lead times needed by lean strategies (Reichhart and Holweg, 2007). With the substantial advances in Information Technology (IT) and digital communication platforms over the past decade, there is a growing awareness that supply chain performance could be improved with the successful adoption of such technologies (Qrunfleh and Tarafdar, 2014; Hsu et al., 2014; Dwivedi and Mustafee, 2010).
The commercialisation of cloud computing may provide solutions to these challenges. Cloud systems turn computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage and applications) into a general utility that can be leased and released by users through the internet in an on-demand manner (Sharif, 2010; Wang et al., 2012; Mezgár and Rauschecker, 2014; Williams et al., 2015). The shared pool of IT resources is virtualised, allowing for dynamic reconfiguration, according to various degrees and volumes of user requirements (Durowoju et al., 2011; Manuel Maqueira et al., 2018). In this way, they can serve a wide range of geographically dispersed users, lead to lower costs of ownership and maximise scalability and rapid deployment (Cegielski et al., 2012).
Academic studies recognise the potential of cloud computing and suggest its adoption to improve business performance. Marston et al. (2011) and Garrison et al. (2015) provide a comprehensive analysis of the business benefits of cloud computing and several recommendations for policymakers to facilitate the technology, Durowoju et al. (2011) investigated how cloud computing system can enhance security and scalability of operations and Yang et al. (2015) showed how cloud-based systems can enhance performance of complex service operations in healthcare. Despite the ongoing calls for the incorporation of cloud systems, little research has been undertaken to explore the effect of cloud systems on elements of supply chain performance (Bayramusta and Nasir, 2016; DeGroote and Marx, 2013). Given that the development, creation and delivery of goods and services are increasingly becoming a joint effort of several parties in a supply chain,...