According to the DHL report, there are over 500,000 registered individual transportation companies in the USA alone. While an item produced in the factory reaches the buyer, it is processed at more than 10 intermediate stops. In such a complex supply chain, many companies still enter data manually and keep this data on paper. This entire process seriously reduces data tracking and reliability.
According to World Economic Forum estimates, by eliminating barriers in the supply chain, the world economy can grow by 5% and world trade by 15%.
Blockchain technology is in a position to accelerate world trade with the innovations it brings. According to the report, there are three main factors behind why blockchain is a strong candidate:
1) Faster Trading
The world shipping industry has more than 50 thousand ships. The operation of this giant industry, which manages 90% of world trade, depends on a large number of bureaucratic procedures and documents. Today, just one ship requires more than 30 people and more than 200 operations to transport goods from East Africa to Europe.
Thanks to the integration of all these systems with blockchain-based technologies, buyers in Europe will be able to easily monitor where their cargo is at the moment and intervene immediately in case of a problem that may arise. Thanks to the systems created by the development of blockchain-based technologies, not only the status of the transactions but also the documentation processes can be monitored live and the process becomes much faster.
2) High Traceability
Thanks to new technologies developed based on blockchain, the journey of a specific product in the supply chain can be monitored step by step. Carrying out every transaction through the same system can easily provide the necessary information even if the product interacts with different carriers or buyers. In this way, it allows trade to be managed and monitored from a single source.
3) Automation of Business Processes
It is estimated that 10% of commercial invoices contain incorrect data. And it is thought that 5% of the transportations can be made more profitable with invoice adjustments. Digitizing documents thanks to blockchain technology will have a serious impact on world trade. After each contract is automatically approved, it will move on to the next stage, thus ensuring an almost error-free system.
According to the DHL report, which lists the innovations that blockchain technology will bring to the manually operated logistics industry, in the very near future, the supply chain will be introduced to the innovations that blockchain will bring and international trade will become much more efficient. International trade management will be at our fingertips in the near future, especially with transaction and document traceability in the supply chain.
The “Blockchain in Logistics” report, carried out under the coordination of DHL Innovation Center and Accenture, was shared in 2018. You can access the source report here.
