Supply Chain Finance – some conceptual thoughts reloaded

Supply Chain Finance (SCF) is an emerging topic at the intersection of logistics, supply chain management and financing. After more than a decade of different scientific contributions and practical developments, this special issue provides recent insights on this subject. Especially during the past financial and economic crisis, when liquidity was scarce and companies faced financial constraints, many supply chains made considerable efforts to strengthen financial power. In short, companies started to implement SCF as a solution for improving supply chain-wide financial health and stability.
 
But SCF is not only about reverse factoring or dynamic discounting. The subject encompasses inventory financing, approved receivables financing (advanced factoring approaches) as well as the management of financial risks. Such financial approaches to SCM require a shift in attitudes towards collaboration that aims to leverage the best credit rating in the supply chain to the benefit of all parties involved. Thus, in exchange for extended payment terms or lowered costs of goods from suppliers, primarily large investment-grade companies provide liquidity and access to financing at reduced costs by implementing open accounts.
 
The role of banks and third-party service providers is changing, too. Strengthened by innovative FinTechs, the institutes have started to make multi-layered solutions, platforms combining physical supply chain logistics and financial supply chain services available to companies (e.g. like inventory off balance financing). The disruptive power of new technologies, like the blockchain, foreshadow the upcoming developments in SCF.
 
This IJPDLM special issue calls for more research in the field of SCF. This recommendation is based on the need to develop a more holistic understanding of the field of financing in the context of logistics and SCM. SCF is a highly promising approach for exploiting untapped sources of financing within inter-organizational settings under consideration of “digitalization”. Thus, practitioners as well as researchers are urged to give SCF issues and developments more serious consideration.