Abstract :It is getting more difficult to satisfy consumers throughout the world. Consumers purchase and/or repurchase decisions have become affected by the overall experience a product and/or service deliver, therefore organizations realize that competing on price is not enough and drive their attention and resources to differentiate the customer experience created by their offerings. One way of accomplishing this is fostering innovation which may be an aspect of an offering which is perceived as new by customers. However, to foster innovation for differentiating customer experience requires coordination, corporation and thus, good information flow between all departments of an organization and between the partners in their supply chain. Therefore, organizations that aim to differentiate customer experience focus on innovations in their supply chains (SC) to reduce costs as well as satisfy their customers. One of the primary drivers of supply chain innovation is the recent advances in technology which alters ways of doing business. For instance, advances in transportation and communication industry aid decreasing costs (e.g. by optimizing routes and reducing the fuel used which also protects environment) and increasing customer satisfaction (e.g. by allowing customer to trace their delivery). Furthermore, previous literature provides examples of supply chain innovations: Radio Frequency Identification, Barcodes, Drones, Driverless Vehicles, and 3D printing, etc. Although previous literature provides several research on supply chain innovation and technology, to our knowledge, no study focused on the perceptions of undergraduate students who are going to work in the field in a few years. These students will be the ones using and possibly improving these innovations and/or technologies, therefore it is important to know which of these innovations are more important and more effective according to them. Therefore, with this study, we aim to shed further light on the perceptions of undergraduate students who is majoring in Logistics Management, Maritime Business Administration, and International Business and Trade regarding these innovations and/or technologies. To accomplish this, we first gave an assignment to fifty-five students regarding the advantages and disadvantages of these innovations and asked their point of view. Furthermore, we applied a free association technique by asking seventy-seven students to name the three most important innovations in logistics and supply chain. According to the initial results, these innovations help companies to increase overall efficiency through reducing costs, increasing speed and accuracy, and improving relationships. The most repeated innovations by students are drones, robots and driverless vehicles. Keywords : innovation, logistics, supply chain management, technology
