Blockchain Technology Applications in the Business Processes of Logistics Enterprises : A study to explore improvements in Logistics Services Quality (LSQ) with blockchain technology

Sammanfattning: Blockchain technology is an emerging technology that has attracted many enterprises’ interest in recent years. Enterprises are interested in improving business processes using blockchaintechnology. Blockchain technology creates an immutable record and eliminates intermediaries in the many transaction processes. Logistics services are one of the business processes that could benefit from blockchain technology. However, as an emerging technology, there is a lack of tools to analyse blockchain technology applications in enterprises. This research paper explores how can blockchain technology be utilised to improve enterprises’ business process, what will be the model of blockchain technology application, and how enterprise could utilise these models. There are three research methods elaborated in three parts of this report. The next paragraphs explain each part. The first part explores literature articles to research blockchain technology and logistics services quality parameters. It will identify the components of blockchain technology that create immutable records and eliminates intermediaries. Furthermore, it expounds on the scope and quality of logistics services today. Finally, it identifies the advantages of blockchain technology to improve the quality of logistics service. The second part of this report researches on the current use cases utilising blockchain technology that improve logistics services. A three-step prioritisation process is applied to define models of blockchain applications from the long list of use cases. The first step is to create a long list of use cases from the unstructured information on the worldwide web. In the second step, the findings from part one are utilised to cluster the long list of use cases into three models of blockchain use case in logistics services: trackability, traceability and direct transaction. Finally, the maturity of each cluster is analysed. Three readiness level are investigated: technological, consumer and regulation readiness. The combinations define the most matured to the least matured use case cluster. The last part of this report analyses the implementation of models uses cases in various scenarios for application in information technology enterprises. Research on a scenario analysis method and on the relevancy to the enterprises’ strategic decision-making process are explained. A simplified method is proposed to analyse the three models of blockchain technology from part two. The use case clusters are evaluated in various scenarios. The scenario analysis of the models of blockchain applications in logistics services will provide limited insight into how enterprises could implement the blockchain technology.