Blockchain highlights real provenance

We’ve all seen it written in stone that millennials are willing to spend more on products from companies committed to delivering both a positive social and environmental impact. It’s the rest of us that have damned the planet and the youngsters are seeking to address things.

This comes at a time when there is a growing demand for transparency from brand owners and manufacturers across their supply chains. But the problem here for retailers’ is that their supply chains have become staggeringly complex. Goods often travel through a massive network of third-parties involved in the process of design, production, and delivery. This results in a journey that is tough to fully track.

Thankfully technology is here again with a solution. It involves the much hyped blockchain technology whose open peer-to-peer platform delivers neutrality, reliability and security for potentially all asset types (including currencies). This means it can be used to create a secure, auditable record of the full journey of goods in the supply chain.

It can hold myriad details relating to retailers/brand owners’ products that can be added to by any of the stakeholders involved, none of whom have control over the ledger as this would bring its integrity into question.

Software firm Provenance is among the growing number of companies using blockchain technology for this very purpose. It gives all parties in the supply chain – from farmer to retailer to end consumer – a point of access for them to gather and share data. The solution creates a single version of the truth relating to a product (and all its attributes) in the supply chain.

Such solutions provide a full transparent record of the supply chain that enables consumers to make positive choices about the goods they are buying and for retailers and brand owners to provide solid proof of any claims they make about the provenance of their goods.

As various authorities, governments and concerned consumers put increasing pressure on retailers and brand owners to highlight the authenticity of their goods retailers should be looking to the clever auditing powers of blockchain to deliver a secure and transparent solution for all stakeholders.

Glynn Davis, editor of Retail Insider

K3 Retail partners with businesses to provide connected technologies based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 so retailers can reach their goals now and in the future. In a size that best fits future plans wherever you need it – Cloud, Hybrid or On-premise. Our solutions drive more than 800 international retail brands from Charles Tyrwhitt and The White Company to Ryman and Sue Ryder, Hobbycraft, Wasabi and Ted Baker, K3 Retail is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the UK’s leading Microsoft Dynamics retail partner.