With Trust Your Supplier (TYS) IBM and Chainyard are launching a new Blockchain network to improve supplier qualification and validation. Integration into information management in the life cycle is also to be optimised. IBM’s industry expertise and Chainyard’s products enable a blockchain-based penetration.
IBM currently has more than 18,500 suppliers around the world. The Trust Your Supplier network will be increasingly rolled out over the next few months and initially tested with 4,000 North American suppliers. This is expected to reduce the cycle time for new suppliers by 70% to 80%, with a potential 50% reduction in administrative costs within the company.
Together with IBM, strong partners such as Anheuser-Busch InBev, GlaxoSmithKline, Lenovo, Nokia, Schneider Electric and Vodafone are already members of the Trust Your Supplier network.
“This blockchain initiative represents a great opportunity for Nokia to further enhance our suppliers’ experience and optimize the onboarding process.” – Sanjay Mehta, Vice president of procurement, Nokia
The blockchain helps to track the previous methods, which are often associated with laborious manual tasks, over the entire life cycle of a supplier. It includes identities, ISO certifications, bank account information and much more.
Through the decentralized approach typical for blockchain chains and an unchangeable audit trail, Trust Your Service is designed to minimize and completely eliminate time-consuming manual processes over the long term in order to guarantee a smooth flow of the supply chain.
For the start, IBM and Chainyard are concentrating on the onboarding and validation of suppliers, but further components of the blockchain are to follow.
