The New order of the world is rising. Be that how the economies are running or how countries will defend themselves. New methods are coming into existence due to the tireless working of innovators and scientists.
Artificial intelligence, blockchain management, machine learning, augmented reality, and virtual reality are some of the most prominent growths in the tech world. And to say the least, these technologies have been game changing when used efficiently.
Among all the rising technologies, the most prominent one among them is Blockchain. Blockchain is a digital record between businesses, with a robust, distributed, and decentralized structure that can be shared among the users. Also, the biggest advantage it has is its immutable record. Which once created is safe for all the time to come. Finance, healthcare, real estate, and supply chain all have taken advantage of it and changed their process.
In this blog we will look at blockchain and supply chain. Understanding how this industry operates, we will get into the details of the post blockchain integration change.
Blockchain and Supply Chain management
Supply chains are the groups of people, things, materials, and forms that make up a product or service. They cover the entire life cycle of the product, from its nascent stage to the final destination. In addition to remember, good supply chain management is all about optimizing forms, cutting costs, improving skills, and showing customers more respect.
The supply chain challenges are immense and need to be addressed if we want to avoid costs and risks. One of the biggest challenges is that there is no visibility of what is happening at every stage of the supply chain. Another major challenge is that counterfeit products are costing companies huge amounts of money and can cause long-term dent damage to a brand’s reputation. The best solution is to document every stage of the production chain so that counterfeit products cannot enter our supply chain undetected. But how?
Blockchain is the solution. Originating in 1992, blockchain found popularity for its usage in 2016. By streamlining operations, creating transparent records, and building robust architecture. As a result, it has attracted a huge number of potential users to join and try out this ever-growing technology. The supply chain is no different. As an illustration, its integration has seen better transparency, traceability, and management. That ultimately is increasing revenue and enhancing customer retention.
Transforming Supply Chain with Blockchain
Let’s look at some of the changes that have turned real with the help of blockchain in supply chain management. Without reservation, you should know these changes. And also, take a step forward in understanding the conjunction of blockchain and the supply chain.
1. Transparency: Blockchain helps create transparent records in the supply chain with the help of the latest technology like distributed ledger, consensus mechanisms, auditable trail, and Smart Contracts. Here, distributed ledger supplies all the users with a copy of the transaction records. Which lets them know everything in detail and be in a loop. While Smart Contracts are self-executing contracts as per the conditions ensuring all the parties know everything in detail before.
2. Improved Tracking: Blockchain offers companies support to manage and mitigate the issue of counterfeit products with provenance tracking, authenticity verification, and tamper-resistant documentation to safeguard your products. Certainly, it also empowers customers with access to transparent and verifiable information about the products.
3. Reduced Supply chain disruptions: Data is an important asset of the supply chain. Running almost every operation, its disruption can reduce revenue and increase the load on the company. Blockchain minimizes supply chain disruptions with decentralization and redundancy of the data. Ultimately, helping all the operations continue even if one end goes down. Preserving critical resources and data.
4. Efficient Documentation: Documentation has been one of the biggest challenges faced by the supply chain industry. Its dynamic and agile nature required fast creation and circulation of documents among its employees. Manual processing is not just time-consuming but also challenging for smooth management. Blockchain solved this issue by the digitization of documents on its records that can be easily accessed, retrieved, and stored among the end users. Moreover, these documents are secure, immutable, and allow interoperability.
4. Improved Collaboration: Blockchain boosts collaboration and tracking among the user with its consensus mechanisms, traceability, and provenance. That can be critical in situations like dispute resolution. Data sharing to provide relevant information while protecting critical and sensitive data.
How big companies are using Blockchain for its Supply Chain
To understand how blockchain has been transforming the supply chain. Let’s have a realistic look at some of the top companies and their use cases. These brands are recognized in their respective industries as leaders and usage proves authenticity of the industries.
Walmart: Founded by Sam Walton in 1962, Walmart has been at the front of using blockchain in its supply chain operations. Partnering with IBM and various companies, it developed a custom solution for traceability across its different operations like food, pork supply in China, and traceability of pharmaceuticals. Not just that, it also improves compliance and has enhanced the maintenance of documentation. Also, it gives employees and managers extended capability to check through maintenance and the stage at which they are right now.
UPS: United Parcel Service a global delivery and supply chain management company saw blockchain as a solution to enhance its logistics and supply chain management. Incorporation into the usage to streamline global supply chains, tracking, and visibility of packages right from origin to destination.
FedEx: Another global giant in logistics and delivery services has been the front-runner in the adoption of blockchain service in its operations. Enhancing traceability, visibility, and efficiency. Hence, FedEx created a distributed secure ledger for real-time updates and boosted collaboration among the employees.
IBM Food Trust: IBM, one of the biggest tech giants sustaining and adapting to the changes with time has developed IBM food trust, a blockchain to address critical flaws existing in the global food supply chain. Unquestionably, the results it produced were improvements in food safety, customer trust, and efficient management of food chains all over the world. Definitely rated among biggest revolutions, IBM food trust has truly democratized the accessibility of quality food all over the world.
Conclusion
Terming the technology of the future, Blockchain is considered to improve the world’s existing ecosystem. Enhancing transparency with its immutable records, blockchain is going to boost most of the technology sooner or later. We have already discussed in detail. How the supply chain has seen a revolution with the adoption of blockchain in its operations.
Still, for all the benefits. The blockchain industry faces some of the most prominent challenges to come into the mainstream. Before becoming available for adoption. Moreover, these challenges include scalability, interoperability, regulatory considerations, and most importantly efficient consensus management. Nevertheless, If you’re planning the efficient implementation of blockchain technology in your company operations. You should start by consulting with the leaders of the technology. In fact, The most efficient solution to integrate will be to employ the leaders of the technology industry in the world.
One of the leading technology companies in the blockchain development is iByte Infomatics. Based out of India, they have extensive experience working for over 10 years, with 300 different clients. Delivered over 600 projects across industries for the clients.
