Flowciety launches to bring the paper-driven world of supply chain management into the current century

Flowciety has announced its launch today with a mission to bring the industry into the digital age, using blockchain technology to solve some of the most significant problems in supply chain management.

“The mantra ‘never change a running system’ is strong with a lot of companies, so sometimes they can’t imagine another way of doing things, because it feels so natural to them,” Sophia Schade, CEO and cofounder at Flowciety told me. “Then we have laws which ensure that cross-company processes and transactions need to be documented in a certain way.”

“The third reason is a bit more complex, but is significant,” Schade said. “The IT systems in place can’t communicate safely in a controlled manner. Of course, you have APIs and can exchange data, but who is in control? Who owns the data? Which system has the overview of the process and why? In business processes and transactions, companies don’t always have the answers to those questions, or worse still, a third-party has the power to control and dictate the answers.”

Flowciety’s main advantage is bringing communication and automation to all partners of the equation, while “feeling” like a classical enterprise system, doing away with cryptocurrencies or expensive and non-scalable consensus mechanisms.

A blockchain-based ecosystem, Flowciety creates a system-agnostic blockchain network to connect the entire flow of information throughout the supply chain – from suppliers to manufacturers to distributors and retailers – and provides real-time tracking. The company also solves potential invoice fraud, compliance risks, policy adherence, anti-corruption issues, and can help with issues like maverick spending.

This project brings traceability, transparency, and accountability to the movement of goods and commodities. The technology can be applied to cross-company processes, especially those in procurement, logistics, and supply chain, to make business processes more efficient and cut costs from supply chain infrastructure. It can also track the movement of goods in an auditable manner back to their origin.

Flowciety addresses common blockchain problems by using enterprise-focused blockchain frameworks.

Those create a permissioned environment without the need for cryptocurrencies, proof-of-work, and other known mechanisms built for public environments. The team integrates a blockchain into a wider solution and combines it with well-known technologies to only use it for cases where it actually makes sense, cherry-picking the best of multiple technologies.

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