**1. Introduction**

In the modern fast-changing business environment, competitive pressures have become more acute. To maintain a competitive advantage and be on top of the game, focus and attention have been given to make supply chains more effective and efficient, in contrast to competing as a single company. A lot of academic research studies have been devoted to improving the physical flow of goods or services and the informational flow of the supply chain. However, the financial aspect of the supply chain has been heretofore neglected (Lamoureux and Evans 2011; Bailey and Francis 2008; Pfohl and Gomm 2009; Caniato et al. 2016). If the supply chain is to be more efficient and the companies are expected to maintain a competitive advantage or even to compete, all the components of the supply chain need to be given proper attention.

Supply chain finance (SCF) became more critical after the financial crisis of September 2008, when the loans from banks and financial institutions receded very drastically. Considerably, other alternative forms of financing, especially trade credit from suppliers, became more demanding. However, an extension of trade credit is subjected to the bargaining power whereby weaker suppliers will be forced to increase the paymen<sup>t</sup> period or forcibly delay the repaymen<sup>t</sup> (Fabbri and Klapper 2016). This can create risk or disruption in the supply chain (Boissay and Gropp 2007; Coricelli and Masten 2004; Raddatz 2010; Caniato et al. 2016). Therefore, there is a need for the better managemen<sup>t</sup> and optimisation of working capital in the supply chain which SCF endeavours. SCF has also been touted to improve the accessibility of funds to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Besides, it also assists with viewing working capital managemen<sup>t</sup> from the supply chain perspective, rather than a

single entity perspective. However, although most of the works on SCF deal with working capital, it is important to note that it is not limited to optimising short-term financial flow; it may also cover long-term financing. SCF can create win–win situations for the supply chain (SC) partners. A lot of academic research works have come up in the last few years that address this area of supply chain.

According to Xu et al. (2018), the research on supply chain finance (SCF) can be traced back to the 1970s; for example, Budin and Eapen (1970) worked on the net cash flow that is generated in business operations during a cash-planning period, and the effect of such changes on the policies relating to trade credit and inventories. Haley and Higgins (1973) studied the relationship between trade credit policy and inventory policy. However, the formalisation of the definition of SCF occurred only during the 21st century. According to Pfohl and Gomm (2009), Stemmler and Seuring (2003) were amongs<sup>t</sup> the first ones to use the term SCF where they spoke of the control and optimisation of financial flows induced by logistics. Hofmann (2005) defined SCF as "located at the intersection of logistics, supply chain management, and finance" and as "an approach for two or more organisations in a supply chain, including external service providers, to jointly create value by planning, steering, and controlling the flow of financial resources on an inter-organisational level".

Pfohl and Gomm (2009) defined SCF as the inter-company optimisation of financing and the integration of financing processes with customers, suppliers, and service providers to increase the value of all of the participating companies. Gomm (2010) defined it as "optimising the financial structure and cash flow within the supply chain". The researcher also stated that the objective of SCF is to optimise financing across borders to decrease the cost of capital and increase the speed of cash flows. Further, SCF is defined as "the use of financing and risk mitigation practices and techniques to optimise the managemen<sup>t</sup> of the working capital and liquidity invested in supply chain processes and transactions" (Global Supply Chain Finance Forum n.d.; Babich and Kouvelis 2018). Thus, this definition added a dimension of risk mitigation to supply chain finance.

It can be seen that the main aim of supply chain finance is to optimise the inter-organisational flow of funds (Hofmann 2005) preferably through the solutions implemented by financial institutions (Camerinelli 2009) or technology service providers (Lamoureux and Evans 2011). The ultimate aim is to align financial flows with other components of the supply chain, i.e., physical and information flow, within the supply chain, improving cash flow from a supply chain perspective (Wuttke et al. 2013b).

As the interest on the SCF grew in the 21st century both in academics and practice, research and contributions to SCF increased. However, there have been differences in the approach to SCF, and thus there emerged different perspectives to the definition of SCF. Gelsomino et al. (2016b) showed that the SCF literature lacked a single definition, and there are two main perspectives to a SCF: financial-oriented perspective, and supply chain-oriented perspective. There is another perspective to SCF, which is called the 'buyer driven-oriented perspective', which mainly focusses on 'reverse factoring', and can be considered as a subset of the 'finance-oriented perspective'. The finance-oriented perspective considers SCF to be a set of (innovative) financial solutions and concentrates on short-term financing and particularly on the financing solutions relating to receivables and payables. The role of financial institutions or banks concerning SCF solutions is mandatory in this perspective. The 'supply chain-oriented perspective' of SCF includes, within the SCF framework, the optimisation of the inventories along the chain (or at least between the customer and the supplier) to reduce the working capital. Therefore, the need for financing or working capital shifts to the player with a better availability of cash and/or a lower financing cost. Further, it does not limit SCF to only short-term financing, and there is no mandatory role of financial institutions and banks in SCF solutions. Thus, it can be said that the 'supply chain perspective' of SCF has a broader view of SCF than the 'finance-oriented perspective'.

There have been literature review articles relating to supply chain finance, e.g., Gelsomino et al. (2016b) and Xu et al. (2018). Gelsomino et al. (2016b) did a review of the existing literature based on three themes, i.e., concept and definitions, expected benefits, and SCF initiatives in place. Although the expected benefits have been touched on by Gelsomino et al. (2016b), the outcome or consequences

of SCF do not just pertain to benefits as evident from the literature; as such, the current researchers felt the need to explore the outcome. Xu et al. (2018) performed a bibliometric analysis of the SCF literature. They provided bibliometric information on the published articles relating to SCF, including the identification of four research clusters of SCF. However, they did not touch upon the main focus of this current article, i.e., the factors, outcomes, and solutions of SCF. By focusing on three themes—the factors, outcomes, and solutions of SCF—this paper will contribute to the existing literature.
