Search for Inventory Management Use Cases here
The management of inventory or stock through a supply chain is a complex task. Once the finished products arrive with the retailer, brand or partner, there are many different journeys that the products will take. With the growth of online, the options for delivery to the end customer have grown and include; Bricks and Mortar stores, collection points, vending machines, collection kiosks, delivery to home, delivery to an office, drive thru collections and many more. All of these options mean that the transparency and accuracy of stock in the network must be extremely accurate.
Blockchain technology can help improve inventory management in a few ways:
- Improve the order tracking for every single order, wherever they are in the network
- Reduce the operational costs of running a complex inventory network
- Allow accurate and real-time tracking through the entire network to shelf or customer home
- Much better management of product returns
Inventory Management benefits and outcomes
“By constructing a distributed ledger with all the details pertaining to the location, position, weight, dimensions and other ambiguous constraints, the on-ground logistics team will be able to manage the outbound time for the product’s movement, which advertently increases the response time. It’s always been, and will always be, an efficiency game.”
“There are about 5,000 companies worldwide that have $1 billion in annual revenue that are transacting between $100,000 and $20,000,000 a minute, according to Accenture. “The complexity is obvious: Tracking all of that inventory, and all of those purchases, invoices, shipments, serial numbers and receipts, which collectively are endlessly reflected between all of the companies in the system,”
“Notably, since the data flows seamlessly and in real time between every sector of the value chain, organizations can gain instant insight into what consumers are buying. They can thereby optimize manufacturing planning and forecasting based on demand, rather than simply react to inventory stockouts. Companies can ensure that they always have the right types of SKUs and amount of stock in their warehouses.
No matter how much their marketplaces may fluctuate, they will always have product available to satisfy consumers with limited excess, thereby eliminating lost sales, minimizing carrying costs and increasing revenue and profitability.
Blockchain can help companies and brands shift their approach to inventory management, replenishment and forecasting from reactive to proactive. They can drive business growth with complete transparency and real-time data flow from end to end. They can thereby optimize manufacturing levels upstream in the supply chain to meet consumer demands downstream, and back.”