A supply chain is the collection of steps that a product or service needs to go through before reaching the final customer.
What is a supply chain?
In simple terms, a supply chain is the list of steps that a service, product, or commodity goes through before reaching the final customer base. These steps vary in number for different productions. The supply chain includes everything from sourcing the raw materials to their preparation and manipulation in factories and other establishments. Once a finished product is ready, the supply chain continues with distribution and sales. Distribution of the product can be local, national, or international, but all of the endpoints where this product will go are part of the supply chain. Lastly, the supply chain involves any third-party companies that buy the product in order to resell it.
In essence, a supply chain is a detailed roadmap of how a service, product, or commodity makes it from scratch to its final destination in a customer’s home. Depending on the product, a supply chain can consist of as few as two steps. However, nowadays, more often than not, supply chains comprise thousands of steps, which makes following the development of a product extremely hard.
Blockchain technology proves to be extremely beneficial when it comes to optimizing supply chains. Nowadays, with huge international productions, supply chain management can become an increasingly lengthy process. Blockchains and crypto tokens can enhance the productivity and security of supply chains to make them more efficient.