A Comparative Study on the Opportunities and Challenges of Blockchain Implementation in Logistics and Supply Chain Operations in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The world is evolving and moving forward with Industrial 4.0 and its implications such as Blockchain Technology. However, its application in Sri Lanka is still in an infant stage. The study aims to compare the Blockchain implementation in logistics and supply chain operations and find out the similarities and contradictions in the opportunities and challenges, most importantly the opinions, suggestions, estimations from the relevant industry professionals. In-depth interviews were conducted with seven industry professionals from logistics and supply chain operations using the simple random sampling method. Discourse Analysis was used to find out the similarities, contradictions and special points which were pinpointed by the industry professionals. The study suggests the opportunities for new business models, creating leading solutions for end customers, generating solutions that are hard to imitate by a third party, decreased cost through the interconnected system, ability to increase quality and traceability and reduction of documentations and administration in an organization. As challenges the study highlights the capital requirement in implementation, negativities of standardization, losing the direct value creation of the end customer and losing the organization‘s flexibility. In conclusion, the study highlights that there are many challenges in comparison with the opportunities in implementing Blockchain Technology to the logistics and supply chain operations in Sri Lanka.