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Onboard new suppliers in days instead of months

Sector: Tertiary sector · Industry: Management consulting · Organisation: Chainyard · Maturity level: Production

Chainyard and IBM run Trust Your Supplier, a Hyperledger Fabric network in which every supplier maintains a digital passport holding its credentials. Founding participants such as AB InBev, Cisco, GlaxoSmithKline, Lenovo, Nokia, Schneider Electric and Vodafone access it as permissioned buyers rather than re-verifying each supplier themselves. According to the Hyperledger Foundation, onboarding time fell from an average of 60 days to 3, and the cost of verifying and maintaining supplier information dropped by around 50 percent.

Documentation status

• Project status: Production — Launched in August 2019 and since then in commercial operation with a growing number of participants on both the buyer and supplier sides.
• Evidence: Evidence medium
• Editorial review: pending

Description

Chainyard and IBM operate Trust Your Supplier, a network where each supplier maintains their credentials in a digital passport and grants access to authorised buyers. Until now, each company has re-verified the same supplier for company data, certificates, insurance proofs, sanction lists, as well as sustainability and financial ratings, while the supplier fills out identical questionnaires for each customer. This shared register eliminates this duplication of work, and changes become immediately visible to all authorised buyers.

The network started in August 2019 with AB InBev, Cisco, GlaxoSmithKline, Lenovo, Nokia, Schneider Electric and Vodafone as founding participants. The technical foundation is Hyperledger Fabric, provided via the IBM Blockchain Platform, where a digital passport is maintained for each supplier as a unique, verifiable identity. Several independent verifiers are involved: Dun & Bradstreet confirms company data, EcoVadis assesses sustainability, and RapidRatings the financial risk, so the stored attributes are not based on self-disclosure. The supplier maintains their credentials once and decides which buyer may view them; an update is immediately valid for all authorised buyers. According to the Hyperledger Foundation, the average onboarding time dropped from 60 to 3 days, and verification and maintenance costs for supplier data fell by around 50% on the buyer side. This case shows that a widely repeated administrative process across the industry can largely be decoupled through a shared verification network.

Perspectives

B2B — organisations perspective

For companies with a large supplier base, the leverage is immediately quantifiable: those who currently take around 60 days for onboarding can compare this with the reported 3 days and halved verification costs. At the same time, the basis for statutory due diligence improves because sustainability and financial risk assessments are available as verified attributes.

Employees perspective

In procurement, work shifts from repeated master data collection to risk assessment and supplier development. Compliance functions gain a more robust basis for due diligence but must assess how far they rely on confirmations from third-party verifiers.

Benefits

General

• According to the Hyperledger Foundation, onboarding time fell from an average of 60 to 3 days.
• Verification and maintenance costs for supplier data fell by around 50%.
• Independent verifiers confirm attributes so they are not based on self-disclosure.
• Changes are immediately visible to all authorised buyers.

B2B — organisations

• Significantly shortened time-to-contract with new suppliers.
• Better basis for statutory due diligence in the supply chain.

Employees

• Elimination of repeated master data collection and questionnaire completion.
• More time for risk assessment and supplier development.

Challenges

General

• The benefit depends on having enough buyers and suppliers represented in the network.
• Companies must decide how far they rely on confirmations from third-party verifiers.
• Integration with buyers' existing procurement systems involves integration effort.

B2B — organisations

• Small suppliers need support to maintain their digital passport.

Employees

• Compliance functions must adjust their audit depth to the verified attributes.

Technology foundation

Trust Your Supplier runs on Hyperledger Fabric, deployed via the IBM Blockchain Platform, and maintains a digital passport for each supplier as a unique, verifiable identity. A distributed ledger is the appropriate foundation here because multiple competing buyers need to trust the same evidence without any one of them having master data control over the shared supplier base.

Implementation examples

Trust Your Supplier as a shared proof network in procurement

Each buyer rechecks the same supplier for company data, certificates, sanction lists, as well as sustainability and financial ratings, while suppliers fill out identical questionnaires for each customer; onboarding takes on average around 60 days and master data becomes outdated immediately afterwards.

Chainyard operates a network together with IBM on Hyperledger Fabric, where each supplier holds a digital passport with verified evidence. Buyers such as AB InBev, Cisco, GlaxoSmithKline, Lenovo, Nokia, Schneider Electric and Vodafone access it.

The network launched in August 2019 and runs on Hyperledger Fabric via the IBM Blockchain Platform. Independent verifiers are involved: Dun & Bradstreet for company data, EcoVadis for sustainability, and RapidRatings for financial risk. The supplier maintains their evidence once and grants access to authorised buyers; according to the Hyperledger Foundation, this reduced onboarding time from an average of 60 to 3 days and verification and maintenance costs of supplier data by around 50 percent.

Onboarding time reduced from an average of 60 to 3 days; approximately 50 percent lower costs for verification and maintenance of supplier data on the buyer side (Source: Hyperledger Foundation).

Multiple checks of the same supplier by different companies, high questionnaire effort on the supplier side, rapidly outdated master data, and lack of independent confirmation of the stored information.

Tags

Supplier management, Procurement, Digital identity, Hyperledger Fabric, Compliance, Master data

Sources

1. ChainYard and IBM reduce new vendor risk & drastically cut onboarding from 60 to 3 days with Hyperledger Fabric
2. IBM, Chainyard unveil blockchain-based 'Trust Your Supplier' network
3. Chainyard and IBM Launch Trust Your Supplier Network
4. Trust Your Supplier: a case study in faster, more secure vendor onboarding through blockchain