Distributed Ledger as new Enabler

Bold claim here in Supplychain Brain.

Why Supply Chain Technology Needs Blockchain
 Jon Kirkegaard, SCB Contributor

Blockchain: A New Enabler

" ... What’s encouraging is a growing wave of awareness of blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT). Interest in blockchain appears to be providing an avenue for the true scaling of real-world collaboration, by embracing decentralized technology, encrypted security and peer-to-peer networking technology.

Blockchain is increasingly being discussed in the context of supply chain, but the focus is often on the replacement of existing applications such as tracking. In my view, this is not where blockchain can be of the most value to the supply chain. The greatest need, and highest return on investment, lies with processes that can’t be automated using centralized technology.

As an example of this disconnect, despite decades of new supply-chain technology, as much as 90 percent of all real planning and coordination is still done via spreadsheet and e-mail. In particular, the coordination of S&OP build plans outside of one department or company is almost always carried out in that manner.

Perhaps you have witnessed in your organization attempts to deploy connected planning technology and kill the spreadsheet, in favor of one real-time instance of advanced planning and scheduling. Has that worked, or has it just created more underground use of spreadsheets, e-mails, whiteboards and conference calls?... "