Are supply chains becoming more product-centric?

Is it time to move to a product-centric supply chain approach to manage ever-increasing information requirements, whilst optimising a sustainable end-to-end value chain?  

For many years the supply chain holy grail has been customer-centricity, but with businesses focusing on costs, sustainability and circularity, and the rise of supply chain risks and disruption, leading businesses are now looking to adopt a product-centric approach. This doesn’t mean any less focus on providing excellent customer service, but product-centricity is enabling them to deliver this service with greater efficiency and transparency.  

Product-centricity is about giving greater control to the businesses ‘owning’ the product, the growers, sellers, buyers, and customers. The enabler is technology, allowing more accurate, timely, and far more granular digitisation of the product through its journey from farm to plate.  With greater digitisation comes the opportunity for greater automation and simplification of processes between trading partners, and customers. The control of their product returns to the people passionate about its quality, condition and value, rather than outsourced to multiple third parties within the supply chain.  

When you limit the need to interact with multiple external silos, the real promise of greater control over quality, efficiency and cost becomes attainable. This is not to undervalue the importance of managing the physical supply chain, but to say that a more holistic approach is possible, where the availability of multiple dimensions of product data throughout its journey can now deliver greater transparency, trust, and sustainability. 

We see Ledger-based technology such as Quantum Ledger and Blockchain as powerful business tools to support a product-centric approach. They can provide the ability to store and manage granular-level product information in near-real time. When you apply AI and machine learning to verify immutable product data, then you can start to build deeper trust and shared insight between trading partners, and between them and consumers.  

Increasingly the data available about a product is as valuable as the product itself. Greater data availability drives greater digitisation of the whole supply chain and creates new opportunities to optimise the value chain whilst building more flexibility and responsiveness into decision-making.  

Think product-centric and your chances of being customer-centric in a sustainability-focused world increase significantly.