Abstract
Over the last ten years, supply chains worldwide have experienced unprecedented shocks that altered global market conditions. Alongside long-term environmental changes, new disruptions (such as conflicts, cybersecurity breaches, and economic recessions) have driven the emergence of novel technologies that are able, for example, to improve the resilience of companies or help them achieve sustainable performance in a broader sense. Consequently, supply chains across various sectors have continuously evolved, adopting digital solutions. More specifically, one area of significant interest for the research community is the Supply Chain Control Tower (SCCT): initially inspired by the aviation industry, SCCT is a centralized system first introduced for managing transportation, and today seen also as an enabler for end-to-end visibility across the entire supply chain through the integration of information from hardware and software technologies. While some researchers have been able to offer formal definitions of SCCTs, it is unclear if their point of view converge with those of the practitioners. Furthermore, albeit existing research has highlighted the characteristics and benefits of SCCTs providing a broad conceptual understanding, it is not yet clear which of the analyses such a tool can theoretically enable are available from technology providers. To fill this gap, this paper conducts semi-structured interviews with service providers to explore what they mean by SCCTs and which of the functionalities identified in the literature are available to organizations. The document offers guidance to researchers and practitioners interested in this dynamic field by exploring the comprehension and practical uses of SCCTs from the providers' perspective compared to the academic one.