SAP Ariba has unveiled its plans to leverage blockchain or distributed ledger technology in order to transform global supply chains.
According to the official release, the company plans to use the technology across its cloud-based applications and business network to upend the way goods and services are traded.
“Twenty years ago, SAP Ariba bet big on a fringe technology called the Internet and pioneered a totally new model for buying and selling. True to our roots, we are again investing at the edge of technology to drive innovations in business-to-business collaboration that will change the game”, said Joe Fox, Senior Vice President, Business Development and Strategy, SAP Ariba.
“One of the things blockchain does is facilitate greater visibility and trust. In embedding it across our applications and network, we can enable supply chains that are smarter, faster and more transparent from sourcing all the way through settlement.”
Among the first applications of blockchain to procurement and supply chains, SAP Ariba sees potential in the tracking and tracing of goods. The company intends to collaborate with London-based blockchain startup Everledger to bring blockchain capabilities to the Ariba Network.
Everledger securely captures the defining characteristics of valuable objects such as diamonds and creates a digital thumbprint of the asset that is stored on the blockchain, the release said. This information, including history, transport, events and ownership, is relied upon by multiple stakeholders across global supply chains to verify authenticity.
According to Fox, such technology is a natural fit within SAP Ariba’s solutions. He said that if it can track and trace diamonds, it can track and trace anything.
“By harnessing the best of disruptive technology, we’ve built a global platform of provenance by connecting records of authenticity to a physical object and its certification as it moves throughout the supply chain,” says Leanne Kemp, CEO and Founder of Everledger. “We know the impact this can have. Integrating our technology with SAP Ariba’s business network can not only lead to a reduction of risk and fraud for stakeholders, but additionally helps to re-shape a new era of global trade focused on the pillars of transparency, sustainability and ethics.”
