Abstract:
Plantation sector plays a major role in the export sector in Sri Lanka where Tea, Rubber and Coconut have been the major agricultural export commodities. According to the Export Development Board (2018), coconut accounts for approximately 12% of all agricultural products. As an agricultural commodity, coconut must undergo a series of operations before they reach to the market. It can be observed that in every operation, practices of supply chain management (SCM) are involved. In developing countries, especially in country like Sri Lanka, traditional supply chain (SC)s are usually involved by many players and they exercise many practices. A wholesaler is a vital player in the SC for a coconut industry. They exercise many practices when they work with the SC, especially with manufacturers and other intermediaries as well as face with many problems in performing these practices. Still whether these problems will have an impact on their business performance is a question that should be answered. However, a comprehensive search of various local and international literature revealed that the impact of problems of SCM practices of wholesalers in the coconut industry on business performance have not been studied in depth in Sri Lankan context. Therefore, this study is designed to examine the impact of problems associated with SCM practices of coconut wholesalers on their business performance with special reference to Kurunegala district, Sri Lanka.
A questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 60 wholesalers in the coconut industry in Kurunegala district, Sri Lanka. Problems cited in the literature were condensed into eight practices of SCM, namely human resource management, technology, facilities, supplier relationship management, customer relationship management, regulatory factors, geographic proximity and logistics and transportation. The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and discriminant analysis. The results show that these problems discriminate the business performance of the coconut wholesalers.
