Why Blockchain for the Supply Chain

EBN OnlineClients in the News: Manufacturers across industries, and perhaps most especially high-tech and electronics manufacturers, are trying to manage hyper-complex, global supply chains. These massive networks involve the production, transportation, and fulfillment of products among widespread suppliers, manufacturing sites, distribution centers, e-tailers, and retailers. With goods touching so many parties, companies often suffer from data silos that fragment operations and limit visibility upstream or downstream, ultimately creating supply and demand imbalances that significantly impact global business and revenue growth.

Today, Blockchain technology offers a way to break down these silos with complete transparency and data flow between every point in the supply chain. As Forbes’ John Giodani defines it:

Blockchain is a public register in which transactions between [users] belonging to the same network are stored in a secure, verifiable and permanent way. The data relating to the exchanges are saved inside cryptographic blocks, connected in a hierarchical manner to each other.

While blockchain was originally created to verify the exchange of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, manufacturers, consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, and retailers can now leverage the same technology to connect global supply chains with a complete ledger of goods movement, inventory, and transactions from source to shelf, and back. This helps drive visibility, trust and accountability among everyone in the value chain.

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