Supply chain blockchain “at pilot stage’ until 2022

Four-fifths (80%) of supply chain blockchain initiatives will remain at a proof-of-concept or pilot stage through to 2022 because of the complexities involved.

According to research by Gartner, early blockchain pilots for supply chain pursued technology-oriented models that have been successful in other sectors, such as banking and insurance, but blockchain use in supply chain requires a different approach

Andrew Stevens, senior director analyst at Gartner, said: “Modern supply chains are very complex and require digital connectivity and agility across participants.

This is because banking and insurance has digital-only assets, while supply chain use cases need to capture events and data across physical products, packaging layers and transportation.“Many organisations believed that blockchain could help navigate this complexity and pushed to create robust use cases for the supply chain. However, most of these use cases were inspired by pilots from the banking and insurance sector and didn’t work well in a supply chain environment.”

“Supply chain leaders have now started to treat blockchain as part of a longer-term technology roadmap and risk management planning. We see that many leaders are adopting a broader end-to-end view across their supply chains and map all requirements – from sourcing across manufacturing to the final distribution,” Stevens said.