How Is Blockchain Poised to Disrupt The Global Supply Chain and Logistics Industry

The sensational blockchain technology has acquired an essential place in the businesses across all the verticals.

It has been developing exponentially since the inception of cryptocurrency and ethereum, but do you know that this distributed blockchain technology has way more applications than just banking?

Indeed, you heard that right. This technology has already become a talk of the tech world. We cannot oppose that blockchain has taken a significant turn in many industries, but here we will ponder its application in the Supply Chain and Logistics Industry.

The year 2018 witnessed a significant change in its application when IBM and Maersk announced a venture jointly to deploy a blockchain-based shipping system that can digitalize the supply chains and track the international cargo in real-time.

Blockchain’s influence on the supply chain industry will keep growing as it can effectively manage the complex supply chain spanned over hundreds of stages and multiple geographical locations.

If you own or work in an industry that relies upon a supply chain—and that incorporates all retailers, food administration organizations, eCommerce stores, and a multitude of different industry verticals—you ought to comprehend what blockchain could mean for your business going ahead.

What exactly is Blockchain, and how is it useful in Supply Chain Management?

Blockchain’s name seems to be a very complex technological term, but here we will try to understand it more simply and easily.

The term “Blockchain” is a combination of two terms, Block and Chain, where block contains the digital information, and Chain is the public database.

Each block in the blockchain contains a timestamp and a connection to the previous block, which keeps on growing with the addition of new sets of recordings called “blocks,” and hence forming a ledger. All the blocks are encrypted in such a way that makes it impossible to manipulate transactions and other information.

According to the current software market stats, IT companies will witness a significant growth in the upcoming years where blockchain will be ruling all the major industries with its usage and application.

Eventually, through blockchain technology’s involvement, everyone in the supply chain can view the Chain of ownership. It increases efficiency and brings transparency in the Chain where the owner can track everything from warehousing to delivery and payment.
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Five ways through which Blockchain can improve the Supply Chain and Logistics Industry?

Most supply chain companies often lose their valuable inventories when they ship their materials domestically and internationally.

In the meantime, customers also remain unaware of the entire process and panic about their order status or wonder if they are investing in it is worth it or not.

To streamline the entire supply chain process, companies spend a large amount of money on technologies that can impart real-time, transparent information to all the parties involved in the process.

And here comes, blockchain as a fix that will help in improving the entire shipping process.

• Increased transparency

Blockchain brings more transparency in the management and helps in reducing frauds and losses from the counterfeits.

Companies document their inventory journey on a ledger that includes information from its origin point to its destination, including the touchpoints. The details can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

• Increased stability

Whether you want to add a new link to the existing Chain or allow new partners to access the ledger, with blockchain technology, you can authorize an unlimited number of partners along any touchpoint to view the blockchain.

• Real-time access

Blockchain has smartly replaced the age-old paper legal documents to electronic data interchange (EDI) methods and intermediate results.

Many inventory management systems have switched from the manual process to barcode technology through which instant updates will be available among all the parties.

• Master Ledger reduces the costs per transaction.

Here, the blockchain acts as a master ledger where the mirroring of documents is not required due to which the transactional costs drop to zero.

• Resilient to cyber attack

“A blockchain-empowered supply chain is highly resilient to cyberattack,” – Jody Cleworth, Chief Executive, Marine Transport International.

In August, UK-based logistics company Marine Transport International partnered with distributed ledger technology company Agility Sciences to create a blockchain-based cybersecurity solution for the maritime logistics space.

This partnership comes after Maersk suffered a major cyberattack on its information technology systems, causing a significant operational slowdown.
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How can SMBs adopt this technology?

Small and medium-sized businesses feel that only tech giants like Walmart and Amazon in the fleet and transportation industry can adopt and freely work on blockchain. But this is not the fact; you don’t need to wait for other companies to start with it.

Consider the following tenets of blockchain and see the eventual transformation in your business:

• Automated Management Software

Upgrade your manual process of tracking the inventories to an automated management software powered by RFID and barcode technology.

• Blockchain Smart Contracts

Blockchain smart contracts efficiently solve one of the biggest and most popular cash flow problems that businesses face. SMBs may find it helpful in payment processing and smart contracts.

Examples of Blockchain application in Supply Chain Management

Let’s have a look at how different industry verticals are utilizing the Blockchain-empowered technology in their supply chain solutions:

The world’s largest mining firm, BHP Billiton, announced the mining process’s usage to better track and record data in the supply chain solution.

De Beers, one of the diamond giants, make the use of blockchain technology to track stones from the place they are mined to the vendors selling them to the customers.
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The Bottom Line

Managing the entire supply chain ecosystem is ultimately a complex process nowadays. To keep growing the business, it is essential to bring transparency to the current supply chain and logistics industry.

And blockchain is the one that eliminates vast amounts of time and effort spent on reconciliation of internal records.

In this way, keeping in mind the application of blockchain technology in the logistics industry, you can contact the blockchain development company to fuse this innovation into your supply chain management.

All these uses of blockchain are amazing and can help you achieve your desired business goals.

Ajay Kapoor

Ajay Kapoor is a technology geek and works with PixelCrayons which is a mobile app development company, as a Sr. Technology Consultant and Social Media Marketing Specialist. He possesses in-depth knowledge of different web/mobile development technologies and helps his clients to choose the best technology as per their needs.

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