What is Planport Project?

PlanPort is blockchain-driven project that aims to transform the supply chain, particularly the procurement industry. The crucial nature of this sector is the reason behind the formation of PlanPort.

Planport is building open source solutions for the supply chain 2.0, initially procurement and sourcing solutions. Procurement is one of the core supply chain management functions and vital part of small to large companies, as they can spend over 75% of their revenue on it, therefore success and opportunities for all companies depend on it. It involves sourcing for suitable suppliers and buying goods and services that these businesses and organisation operate on.

Problems & Solution of Planport
Presently, businesses are subjected to a long and tedious procurement process, usually marred by many intermediaries. Moreover, it is imperative to undergo these procedures, lest they disrupt the supply chain, incur losses, suffer reputation damage, and so on. Despite the intensive demands of the procurement process, the industry lacks a competent solution to this problem.

While the procurement industry is worth a whopping $9 trillion, it has its fair share of shortcomings. These are:

Disorganization:

Currently, the market lacks adequate electronic procurement mechanisms. Surprisingly, a significant number of logistics’ companies still favor the obsolete manual records, an aspect that slows down the processing of transactions.

Ineffective Payment Systems:

As of now, businesses that trade across international borders are subjected to costly and inefficient payment systems. Consequently, they lose considerable portions of their gross profits to platforms that offer such services. Furthermore, the amount of paperwork involved in such transactions often requires a lot of time to procure and validate.

Contract Issues:

Due to the stringent regulatory measures and other challenges, it is usually difficult to find a lasting partner in the procurement business. In the instances where business partner up, contracts are usually breached.

Reconciliation Challenge:

In the procurement world, business usually pay long after the goods have been delivered this significantly affects the flow of cash within the sector, and to extent impacts on the reconciliation of payments by the suppliers.

Manual process

Sourcing for any business with the current state of sourcing systems is not only a logistical nightmare. The whole process also comes with technological challenges that could quickly drive a business owner completely nuts. To source for any product and have it moved from its point of origin to the place where the business intends to put it to use, the procuring department has to go through a harrowing process dotted with numerous disjointed legacy systems. And this accounts for why most procurement heads resort to using spreadsheets, email and other tedious manual processes.

Closed and centralised Access

MIn most cases, businesses are forced to contract expert personnel for their different needs. This personnel does not come cheap and cost companies millions of dollars. This is as a result of specialized firms who contract their staff to businesses on strict timeframes. Another problem is that of firms restricted geographically. These firms can not offer consultancy services to businesses not located within their geographical reach. The result is that an individual or company that needs a variety of services within the procurement industry are forced to contract more than one firm for their different branches.

Supplier Management

From verification and responding to requests and payment processes, the current B2B relationship is costly, and the problem starts with the disorganized and inefficient procurement and sourcing system. The high remittance fees combined with sophisticated and unfair payment terms is making the current process painful.

Contractual nightmares

Due to the varying jurisdictions and regulatory rules that businesses and their partners operate in, contracting a great sourcing partner in the present systems is mired with a lot of manual labor, terrible verification systems, and inefficient enforcement tools. -Inconsistent and email intensive processes -Long negotiations and approval life cycle -Lack of tight control for e.g. for non-standard contracts/language -Legal risk

B2B remittance

In regards to the consumers, payments are made at the point of sale, while in the B2B world, business payments mostly take place weeks or months after goods and services have been delivered. This creates a problematic vacuum between the funds being sent and the description of the payment, which in turn, translates to errors in the cash-flow. Today, every business with either an international supplier or customer suffers from a grossly inefficient and expensive means of sending or receiving payments.

Lack of incentives

The lack of incentives that promote repeated business and provide some cushion in case of an eventuality leaves suppliers devastated when they lose proposals in the bidding process. As a result, businesses become overly picky and sensitive to who they work with. This hurts the procurement industry to a great extent and discourages competition with big and established brands who have enough capital to recover from such uncertainties.

Roadmap: