Blockchain Solutions: Practical B2B Supply Chain Applications – Technology

There has been a significant amount of hype around
cryptocurrencies and blockchain in the last five years, with
business to business (B2B) blockchain applications slowly starting
to gain traction in leading-edge organizations.

Although blockchain is the underlying technology for
cryptocurrencies, the technology can be separated from a
cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, and used in a B2B
environment where a high degree of visibility and/or security is
essential. Significant opportunities exist for companies that
strive to understand the capabilities of blockchain technology and
creatively apply the technology as a solution to business
transactions.

Successful organizations will benefit from a reduction in
overall costs of processing, monitoring, validating and executing
transactions between a buyer and seller of products – and in other
areas across the entire supply chain. Understanding the
capabilities of the underlying technology is imperative to ensure
that the value and benefits clearly outweigh the costs and risks of
implementation.

Business-to-Business Blockchain

Benefits Blockchain technology has the capability to optimize
business processes that are manual, paper-based and dependent on
human interaction – and that often lead to mistakes or are left
undone altogether. Blockchain technology delivers solutions to
business problems previously thought unsolvable due to lack of
transparency, security and trust in the ecosystem.

The four primary problems that blockchain technology tackles are
commonplace across industries:

• Provenance – Blockchain technology was
  designed to be immutable, which allows for the ability to track or
  trace the origination of a product to the beginning of a process in
  seconds. With 100% traceable and guaranteed origin data on
  products, transparent and real-time tracking throughout the
  waypoints of the supply chain, and cryptographically secured
  digital records in compliance with agreed-upon business rules,
  blockchain delivers a real-world solution to an age-old,
  time-consuming process.

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guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.