Serve: Decentralising Logistic Services By Leveraging Blockchain Technology

danielwrites (53)in #blockchain • 6 years ago (edited)

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Achieving an effective flow of goods and services from production point to consumption point, whilst maintaining fluid vendor-customer interaction remains a pro business-hack, especially as the business world now heavily thrives on efficient logistic services. The advent of the internet and the ever soaring rates of technology advances has ensured that online purchases hit an all time high, thus necessitating enterprises to put in place an efficient logistic service to cater for demands. Masterminding and orchestrating such activities to customer's taste however is anything but a walk in the park, for mega corps that have to deal with goods belonging to thousands of customers, to small scale businesses seeking to carve a niche for themselves in a highly competitive market. The need to get it right has never been so pronounced.

While the upward surge in revenue of most companies can be largely attributed to the rise in online orders and home deliveries, it is indeed very appalling that the consumers are often left to suffer the consequences of poor services usually in form of high delivery costs, wrong item delivered, lack of adherence to delivery schedule, amongst other tailbacks .

Here is a practical use case that best depicts the current state of logistics:

Ann is a banker who works at the United Bank of Africa. Due to the tasking nature of her job, she often skips breakfast in a bid to beat traffic in Lagos, Africa's most commercial city. By 12 noon, she usually orders pizza from Domino's and although delivery is often timely and efficient, it is everything but pocket friendly. Below is a pictorial breakdown of the cost effect.

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A brief study of the supply chain will reveal the following flaws and inadequacies of modern day logistic services .

Most enterprises employ third party logistic services, thus elongating delivery chain.
A longer delivery chain usually translates to a longer delivery time and lower operational efficiency.
Delivery fees are quite on the high, leaving customers with a net charge of about 40% the price of purchased good.

These shortcomings have left more to be desired of businesses and providers, as it is quite evident that current practice does not offer customers value for their money. What then is the way forward for enterprises,providers and customers ? Could there be a way to arrest these shortcomings, enabling all parties to reap the benefits of their business relationship ?

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Blockchain technology has proven to be a shining light in times when the many loopholes of centralised systems are fast tearing apart various sectors of human lives. The disruptive public ledger technology has opened the eyes of many to the countless possibilities made available through decentralised systems, by allowing autonomous businesses run seamlessly whilst enjoying benefits of data security, transparency, immutability and elimination of server related costs and those of middlemen. From inception, the technology solely revolutionised the finance industry by offering an escape route from government controlled currencies through digital assets known as cryptocurrencies. Today it's application is diversified, as seen in aspects of human lives ranging from health, sports, e-commerce, IOT to mention a few. It is imperative to highlight the fact that these characteristic features of blockchain is the missing piece required to salvage the logistics industry. Having established this, it is time to shift the spotlight towards the industry's game changer; the platform which self tasks itself with the challenge of revolutionising the logistics industry by harnessing blockchain technology.It is not just designed to benefit large scale enterprises, nor small scale business solely, neither is it built to independently favour customers; rather it is designed to provide fair and favourable logistic services to all players in the industry, hence it's name, SERVE.

Before we dive in fully into what this platform is all about, I recommend you watch this explanatory video which I made sharing my thoughts on this platform.

Serve is a blockchain based platform designed to correct the flaws of existing logistics solutions by employing immutable smart contracts to ensure that enterprises/providers deliver according to preset contract terms. Serve will also considerably reduce extra costs incurred due to delivery for 40%to just about 2.5%.Here's another image of the previously mentioned pizza use case, this time using Serve .

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What conclusions can you draw from the image in stark contrast to the first ?.

The supply chain is significantly shorter, thus leading to a speedy process.
There are no existing platform fees, therefore, net costs reduces from 40% to only 2.5%.

It is imperative to note that the scope of Serve's operation is not limited to pizza delivery alone, as this is a mere illustrative use case. Infact, Serve can be integrated to virtually any enterprise that requires or renders logistic services.

How is operational efficiency attained on Serve ?

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Serve platform requires users to purchase goods using it's native Serve token. After payment for an item has been made, a smart contract is created which necessitates the patronised enterprise or provider to stake a certain amount which is escrowed till after contract fulfillment.
The purpose of the staked fee is to ensure that enterprises prioritise customer satisfaction and observe total adherence to contract terms. After the terms have been met in a satisfactory manner, the staked fee will be returned back to the seller, while incase of any disputes, it is withheld until a fair conclusion is reached .
One impressive feature of Serve ecosystem is the opportunities it presents parties to not just maintain existing cordial business relationships with others but to build new ones since every enterprise, provider and user can easily access and contact one another . Serve also provides no forms of limitations whatsoever, as every one reserves the right to become a user, enterprise, provider or all at once .

Features and benefits of Serve

Open source & SDK API : The Serve platform is open source and allows for third party integrations through it's SDK API .

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Peer-to-peer : Serve eliminates middlemen and their associated costs allowing transacting parties to relate directly.

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Decentralised and secure: Serve's decentralised platform ensures that it is completely devoid of data hacks, server maintenance, downtime, hardware upgrade costs and other setbacks associated with centralised systems.

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Reputation and accountability system: Serve proposes a reputation score for enterprises which will guide customers choices as well as promote high quality of service .
Lowering entry barriers for small scale enterprises: The current state of logistics is evidently unfavourable for small scale businesses. Serve nips in the bud, ensuring that all enterprises irrespective of how big are open to equal chances on the platform.

Final thoughts: The future of logistics with Serve

The future of many businesses is heavily dependent on the efficiency of logistic services, especially as online purchases and home delivery is gradually on the rise. The need for a viable means of coordinating and delivering goods and services in an efficient and cost effective manner has never been this pronounced. Serve redefines logistics by showing how a decentralised network can bring about the much desired positive impact, through elimination of middlemen and imposing accountability and reputation scores to ensure that providers and enterprises never have the option to compromise on service quality.

TOKENOMICS

The Serve token (SERV) is an ERC-20 token which is used for transactions within the ecosystem. Below is a graphical representation of the token allocation.

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