With bitcoins and cryptocurrency gaining much popularity over the last few years, its underlying technology — blockchain, seems to be the latest buzzword across industries. There seems to be a sudden urge among businesses to adopt and use the technology to significantly improve their workflow operations. The concept seems to have a promising future that would assist in solving several hold-ups of the existing technology gears.

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2. With bitcoins and cryptocurrency gaining much popularity over
the last few years, its underlying technology — blockchain,
seems to be the latest buzzword across industries. There seems
to be a sudden urge among businesses to adopt and use the
technology to significantly improve their workflow operations.
The concept seems to have a promising future that would assist
in solving several hold-ups of the existing technology gears.
But first, let’s look at what blockchain technology is.
What is Blockchain?
A blockchain is a digital ledger that records all cryptocurrency
transactions. It consistently keeps growing as “completed”
blocks are added to it with a new set of recordings. Each block
contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a
timestamp, and transaction data. Bitcoin nodes use the
blockchain to differentiate legitimate transactions.

3. Using Blockchain in Supply Chain
As per a Zion Market study, the market scope of blockchain
technology in supply chain management is estimated to grow to
approx. USD 3.15 billion by 2028.
The use of blockchain in the supply chain helps firms
significantly in cost reduction, source tracking, and establishing
trust. The immediate need to eliminate intermediaries has
paved the way for the automation of supply chain operations.
Supply chain blockchains have replaced coins to tokenize
different types of transaction-related data. This has thus
enabled the creation of unique, transparent, and easy-to-verify
detectors for purchase orders, inventory units, bills of lading,
etc.
This technology governed the overall blockchain supply chain
market in 2021 and is expected to continue dominating the
forecast period. The reason is the growing adoption of
blockchain platforms for streamlining the supply chain
processes.

4. How Supply Chain Industry Benefits From Adopting Blockchain
Blockchain in supply chain gives increased supply chain
transparency, and significantly reduces costs and risks across the
supply chain. Here’s how:
Real-Time Sharing of Data
While blockchain records actions in a chain of “blocks” and
display the most recent information, all the previous records are
also saved. Blockchain ledger allows you and multiple partners
to work on the same data in real-time, without losing any.
However, it is to be noted that the data once recorded, cannot
be altered and only be viewed.
Enhanced Security
As every new block created is linked to the previous blocks, it’s
impossible to fabricate or modify any data. To make any changes
to the ledger data, you need to make changes to hundreds of
copies of that ledger at the same time. Simply put, this means it
can’t be hacked.

5. Additionally, blockchain data is decentralized. This implies it’s
not stored in a single location like its previous supply chain tech.
The data can be accessed through the cloud network from any
geographic location worldwide. However, while anyone can view
the records via the internet, it would need someone to verify
access to any specific data.
Thorough Transparency
Blockchain ensures transparency throughout the supply chain
process as it’s a shared database. This transparency is vital for
managing products with shorter life cycles, and also for
managing the entry of additional partners in the supply chain.
Moreover, blockchain tech enables supply chain partners to
monitor transaction status in real time. They know the exact
location of the product without having any doubts created by
manual records. This ensures smoother processes, reduced lead
times, reduced delays and redundancy, greater team
relationships, and a satisfied customer.

6. Additionally, blockchain supply chain innovations bring about the
following key benefits:
Improved tracking of the material supply chain to meet corporate
standards
Reduced losses from the counterfeit or black market
Reduce paperwork and administrative costs
Improved transparency and compliance over outsourced contract
manufacturing
Reduced probable public relations risks due to supply chain
malpractices
Builds stakeholders’ trust and ensures their engagement and
involvement
Blockchain Challenges
More Industries Need to Adopt
While certain industries have successfully adopted blockchain, it is yet
to see increased adoption in the supply chain industry. The technology
makes transactions and international payments more secure, efficient,
and transparent. However, more industries are yet to implement
blockchain in the future as organizations continue to experience the
benefits of its implementation.

7. Need For Strong Network
The key barrier to a blockchain is the relatively small network of
users. To scale up operations, all members throughout the supply
chain, from the supplier to the retailer, need to use it. Since the
entire blockchain ecosystem still seems new to many, more users
are yet to adapt, or are still adapting to it.
Complexity in Handling Data
While implementing blockchain is easy, blockchain programming
is something that requires users to learn complex skills. This
means firms need to give comprehensive training to their
workforce or outsource their programming to a third party.
Clustering And Anomaly Detection
Clustering and anomaly detection are unsupervised learning
methods that can be used for fraud detection by identifying
patterns within your data that suggest fraud may occur, such as
many small withdrawals from an account or many large
purchases made at one store over time.

8. Regulations
The laws and regulations seem to be another barrier to
blockchain adoption. Due to the global nature of supply chains,
there is an intricate range of worldwide regulations to be
considered. Today’s supply chain regulators are exploring ways
to integrate the old and traditional laws with the new emerging
digital technologies.
However, as more users of blockchain begin to see the
advantages, greater will be the number of adopters of the cloud-
based database infrastructure.
Final Notes
Blockchain technology has great scope and has promising years
ahead in assisting firms as well as industries. Using blockchain in
supply chain can help reduce administrative costs, achieve a
boost in performance by streamlining processes, and widen
visibility across overall operations. New emerging technologies
thus offer promising opportunities to enhance and improve the
supply chain industry and the transparency within.

9. To explore new ways to create business value using blockchain in
supply chain, Mindfire Solution has a team that does the
groundwork of developing customized solutions to help you bring
efficiencies to your business model.
If you are looking to integrate blockchain technology into your
firm’s supply chain strategy, Contact us.

10. Content Source: Medium
Contented by: Mindfire Solution