Consumer/user/customer integration in Supply Chain Management: a review and bibliometric analysis

ABSTRACT The integration of actors into Supply Chain Management (SCM) is currently becoming more and more crucial. All actors, including suppliers, manufacturers, customers, consumers and users have a role to play in the company’s performance. Customers, consumers and users have become major actors in the Supply Chain (SC). Their active integration into the SCM is becoming a new challenge for companies. This article aims to take stock of what has been done on the integration of customers, consumers, and users in SCM, in the literature, and to propose future avenues of research. A bibliometric analysis is conducted to study the integration of downstream actors. The analysis provides details on the most cited articles, published authors and influential journals using Bibexcel, and then Gephi is used to create a network. This article first proposes a quantitative analysis of the literature by highlighting the best authors, articles and journals on the integration of downstream actors in SCM. Subsequently, a network analysis reveals five clusters and the challenges to come. Finally, we suggest how and to what end these actors might be integrated. This bibliometric analysis proposes to explore this subject in depth, by identifying key research topics such as sustainability and information systems, interrelations and the evolution of publications over time.