Accenture Introduces Blockchain Procurement Solution

Accenture has a blockchain solution that just went live, according to a press release.

The company said it works with many suppliers all over the world, and as its business grows and moves more quickly, so do the suppliers and contractors it works with. Keeping track of everything is complicated, and onboarding new clients involves a lot of data collection.

“With increased supplier demand, Accenture buyer teams need to move quickly and effectively,” said Shane Marshall, the company’s managing director of Global IT and Blockchain. “But, too often, they are slowed down because of siloed systems and duplicated data entry. Given this, Accenture Procurement asked our internal IT and Accenture Technology blockchain organizations for a solution.”

The team worked together and came up with a “True Supplier Marketplace solution,” which is a process that was enabled by a shared procurement platform. The new platform combines buyer units and suppliers in one platform, places the supplier data and responsibility with the suppliers, and is on a blockchain network that’s accessible by a distributed application in a way that allows for the data to be shared securely.

The True Supplier Marketplace solution has “dramatically improved Accenture’s approach to enable suppliers and manage the relationships,” Marshall said. “By giving control and possession of data to the true owner, the supplier, the True Supplier Marketplace decreases onboarding time, improves compliance and facilitates the journey to touchless source-to-pay processing. Accenture buyers can procure necessary resources for Accenture teams in shorter lead times and invoice processing and payments are timely as well.”

In other blockchain news, last year, Coca-Cola, whose supply chain operations are led by a firm called Coke One North America, said it was going to expand its blockchain software to 70 manufacturers, from two. The blockchain helps to improve the company’s distribution, and it allows manufacturers to have access to other suppliers’ orders and specs.

In 2018, Credit Data, one of the most well-known crypto exchanges in in Korea, joined a blockchain procurement project. Credit Data, which operates in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) accounting software market, launched a project to use blockchain to come up with a solution to get procurement costs down for its customers. Upbit, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the country, teamed up with Credit Data on the solution.