Assessment of upstream service quality of supply chain

A basic supply chain consists of a focal firm with upstream and downstream business partners. Upstream refers to the suppliers of a focal firm and downstream refers to the immediate customers of focal firm in a supply chain. In this paper attempt has been made to measure the service quality delivered by the upstream supply chain partner from the focal firm's perspective. Six factors of upstream service quality have been identified. It is seen that approachability, personal interaction, competency, credibility, deliverables and communication are important for upstream members to deliver quality to their subsequent business partner. The uniqueness of this research is that the scale may be used to measure the service quality delivered by any upstream supply chain partner with respect to it is subsequent partner.