We’ve entered a new era. Recent disruptions in our supply chains have illuminated the heightened need for visibility and transparency. Consumer’s trust is at an all-time low. Additional disclosure demands are being applied from regulatory and oversight bodies concerned with product composition, safe handling, appropriate environmental, social, and governance issues, and trade agreement compliance.
Simplistic examples requiring proof include:
Legal age,
Legal authority,
Data access rights,
Materials sourcing,
Product composition,
Country of origin, transport, and handling, etc.
This exchange of requirements and claims is what drives commerce, yet there is no simple, universal method of accomplishing this data exchange with irrefutable integrity. As a result, we continue to doubt or mistrust commercial partners. Clearly, we need to define a commercial architecture by which sellers, buyers, and regulators can quickly, efficiently, and securely exchange critical commercial data with 100% trust to break any supply chain “log-jam” and protect buyers and sellers.
The way to substantiate all of this is through a system of evidence, which is a data management platform that aggregates and organizes structured and unstructured data; manages requirements and claims; collects validation, verifications, and certifications of the data and the processes by which it has been gathered. This platform documents and chronicles people, places, and products and presents it to various permissioned audiences. When this is done throughout the supply chain the result is transparency and then trust. This provides a new meaning to “trust, but verify.”
Over the next several weeks, we will describe what we think a Commercial Trust Architecture (CTA) looks like and provide an outline of how to get there from here. We think this era requires this new architecture. The 4th software wave we touched on recently will hit quickly and there will be corporate winners and losers. The winners will embrace this new opportunity, sprint, compete, and succeed based on transparency and the value-add that creates.
Are you positioned to win in this new era? Show me the evidence!
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