Abstract
Adequate global sourcing makes a strategic difference to an organization's ability to reduce cost and improve the quality of its product. However, the global sourcing makes the process of supplier selection riskier and more complex. The data required for confronting the criteria needs to be specific and up-to-date. Now that we have entered the Big Data era with the prominence of social media and social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn; we now have access to global insights and knowledge regarding international suppliers. In this research, we propose a Twitter Enabled Supplier Status Assessment (TESSA) tool that can assist companies in their global supplier selection process. TESSA firstly retrieves a target supplier's related information from the most popular microblog Twitter and then obtains potential risk and uncertainty regarding the supplier through text mining. The discovered risks and uncertainties for companies making better decision on their global supplier selection process.
1. Introduction
Due to global competition modern organizations are paying particular attention to Global Sourcing. This practice has been embraced due to the cost savings it generates, the access to technologies and higher quality products in some cases. Organizations can choose suppliers from anywhere in the world, developing countries are becoming more competitive given their low labor and operating costs. Global supplier selection is riskier than the domestic supplier selection, consequently the decision making process is strongly affected by perceived risks. Suppliers with low price products can be offset by a history of delayed deliveries, or suppliers with state of the art technology can be undermined by excessive tariffs and costs.
5. Conclusion
The development of Twitter Enabled Supplier Status Assessment can be critical for any company in need of an international supplier, the results obtained show high levels of accuracy and performance. This tool allows companies to have a better insight when selecting an international supplier. It can assist the decision team by narrowing down their list of potentials suppliers by exposing their risks and uncertainties; It can give the supplier selection team more knowledge to make the appropriate decision regarding their needs
