Web3 and Blockchain Transformations in Global Supply Chains

Global trade has grown in complexity and magnitude over millennia, but its processes remain relatively unchanged. This module explores how blockchain can help modernize global trade and link together other capabilities for the twenty-first century. In this module, you will learn how various participants in the global trade network stand to derive unique value from blockchain technology—including banks and financiers, corporations, freight forwarders and carriers, customs and port authorities, regulatory bodies, and insurance providers. You will explore the ways that blockchain serves to link together organizations, industries, and technologies, and fosters an approach to collaboration that will drive new efficiencies.

Most supply chains today still rely heavily on opaque, time-consuming, and costly processes. Documentation is largely paper-based and handled manually. Approvals from multiple parties at each checkpoint often cause delays and are susceptible to fraud on cross-border orders. Catching mistakes in compliance and quality control is difficult. In this module, you will learn how blockchain can help mitigate the complexity of global supply chains by building trustable digital relationships among partners, goods, and customers.

The Internet of Things (IoT) revolves around connectivity, identification, sensing, remote monitoring, and actuation of physical objects. In the context of global supply chains, the application of IoT to sensor-based logistics enables cargo data—such as location, temperature, humidity, pressure, shock, and light exposure—to be captured and transmitted to multiple parties, allowing them to improve overall visibility and respond to unexpected deviations. In this module, you will learn how blockchain can help achieve autonomous and contract-based communication between physical things, providing an auditable record for products in transit.

Provenance and traceability are vexing challenges for a wide range of companies and their supply chains. A supply chain represents all links between parties involved in creating and distributing goods, starting with suppliers of unprocessed raw materials and ending with the delivery of a finished product to the consumer. The application of blockchain for provenance in supply chains aims at providing deep-tier visibility into the origins of a product. In this module, you will learn how blockchain has the potential to provide unprecedented supply-chain visibility in near real time, serving to combat counterfeit goods, enable ethically-sourced materials, track food safety from farm to fork, and increase buyer trust.