Customers in today’s market expect excellent delivery experiences. They aim to improve parcel movement visibility, traceability, transparency, and sustainability. In fact, if their cherished brand falls short of these expectations, customers are willing to switch to alternatives.

It is obvious that a lack of visibility into supply chain operations won’t do. How then, can supply chain executives respond to the growing issue around the lack of transparency and trust in intricate supply chains?

Blockchain is a perfect technology solution for enhancing supply chain traceability, security, transparency, and trust since it is a decentralized, distributed ledger that cannot be altered. Let’s examine how blockchain makes this possible.

Facilitating Operational Excellence

Multiple parties, different locations, and various components are all involved in logistical processes. Engaging with many of these aspects on a regular basis can cause inefficiencies, inaccurate data, and inappropriate integrations across management functions.

With the use of blockchain, the shared network infrastructure may be automated and digitalized, promoting more effective teamwork and communication. Through automation and auditing, it considerably minimizes manual operations and ensures the transparency of export-import procedures. Additionally, it lessens the chance of billing fraud and the duplication of orders. Smart contracts automatically carry out contracts when certain conditions are satisfied, allowing for a quicker, more accurate, and more timely cash reconciliation.

Creating Greater Visibility

Supply chain visibility is one of the most important problems facing the logistics sector. Despite rising global spending (almost $75.5 Bn by 2026) on digital transformation in logistics, only 6% of companies in the industry claim full supply chain visibility, according to a survey. Blockchain also stands out as the best option in this case.

To enable secure, dependable, and verifiable information transmission, blockchain can interact with other technologies including the Internet of Things, smart sensors, process automation, and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). Additionally, one of the benefits of blockchain is that while some information, like the shipping number, is open to everyone, other data is only accessible dependent on the level of authorization in the supply chain. Therefore, when utilizing blockchain, logistics firms do not need to worry about security.

Facilitating Traceability

Ingredient traceability is a crucial consideration for three out of every four consumers when making a purchase. In fact, close to two-thirds of consumers would transfer brands to a product that offers specific information regarding ingredient lists, such as the precise source and date of manufacturing.

In the end, this is essential to creating a better store-to-shelf trip. Because of the tamper-proof nature of blockchain, data about things like product origins, real-time tracking, visibility into shipment health, and other things are kept confidential.

Enabling Secure Transactions

Transactions in business are prone to fraud, inefficiency, and other inconsistencies. The threat also exists from the collapse of the central banking system and from the manipulation of shipments while they are in transit.

Transactions are more secure, transparent, and verifiable using blockchain. The most recent version of the universal ledger, which is updated by peer-to-peer replication, is distributed across all participants. Additionally, smart contracts are the most reliable records for B2B payments, delivery evidence, localized failures, tax responsibilities, and financial audits across all supply chain participants.

Ensuring Cost Optimisation

The procurement procedure requires a lot of time and resources. Repeated manual negotiations do not, however, ensure fair decisions. Blockchain tracks buy quantities, collects real-time data from partners, and ensures that volume-purchasing benefits are affordable.

The logistics industry benefits greatly from technology. However, in order to benefit from this or any other cutting-edge technology, digitization is a requirement. Innovative solutions for logistics management use the Amazon Quantum Ledger Database as a standalone append-only ledger database.

The use of such cutting-edge technologies can guarantee the highest level of security, traceability, and confidence among logistics stakeholders and open up opportunities that could propel the sector to previously unimaginable heights.