Digitalisation of humanitarian supply chains, a qualitative study exploring challenges and opportunities from the perspective of practitioners and scholars

The aim of this work is to provide an overview of the challenges and opportunities associated with the adoption, implementation, and use of digital technologies within Humanitarian Supply Chains. Organisations working in this field face a wide range of complexities due to their internal structure and the high level of uncertainty of the environments in which they typically operate. Following a qualitative approach, the data was collected through semi-structured interviews with practitioners and scholars dealing with Humanitarian Supply Chains, and then analysed through the lenses of Grounded Theory. The findings show how despite the numerous endogenous and exogenous constraints that may be encountered by the organisations, the adoption of digital technologies can be useful to increase the level of visibility and transparency, to support the decentralisation of humanitarian aid, and to improve the overall activities of the organisation. Nevertheless, the adoption of a digital system is only one of the aspects that the organisation has to preside over. In fact, managing the transition from paper to bits and beyond is a long-term path where humanitarian organisations need to invest in their human resources, and to design flexible processes and systems that can be tuned to the challenges of the operating contexts.