As a cannabis distributor, you’ll oversee managerial operations, invent marketing strategies, and organize financial plans. The cannabis industry in Canada is highly regulated, and the complexity underlying tracking, reporting, and auditing product and transactional information can make things frustrating. It’s important to have a simplistic, transparent way to organize the associated data.
Blockchain technology is making itself available to different industries across the economy as a simple way to record and track information. The chain of records is associated with high-tech, futuristic ideas like cryptocurrency, but the platform is an easy and useful way for business managers to stay on top of their records. Read on to see how it can be useful for the cannabis industry.
The Fact and Fiction of Blockchain
Blockchain may conjure up hesitant reactions in people, as the software has long been associated with cryptocurrencies, virtual tender like Bitcoin that experiences fluctuating stock prices and concerns around regulation. Though blockchain is the technology that enables cryptocurrency to work, it has many other applications outside of them.
In simple terms, blockchain is:
- A digital ledger that contains a series of unchangeable records
- An immutable chain of blocks of information
- A method of recording transaction series
Blockchain is a digital ledger containing unchangeable blocks of information
Blockchain technology dates back to the 1970s, when computer scientist Ralph Merkle conjured up a simple way of recording transactions in a series that proves each transaction is related to the previous one.
This is the central idea underlying blockchain. Today, blockchain platforms are used in many sectors such as food safety and pharmaceuticals. It can also be applicable to operators of an AGCO cannabis dispensary.
How Blockchain Can Be Useful for Operators of an AGCO Cannabis Dispensary
What’s appealing about blockchain is its invulnerability and transparency. The information chain in this technology is completely immutable, and every partner has a copy of the chain. At a point in time where every aspect of our digital lives is vulnerable to hacking, erasure, or manipulation, hyper-secure technologies like blockchain are immeasurably useful. Blockchain can be used to store a wide range of both product-specific and transactional info. This can include product origin, genetic info, lab results, cultivation inputs, location tracking, and more.
Blockchain technology has many benefits for cannabis business management
Though the technology is relatively simple in scope, there are many ways it can be beneficial for cannabis retailers:
- Ensures information cannot be altered through error or forgery
- Helps to ensure freedom from contaminants
- Provides more information about industry practices and products
- Boosts compliance with regulations
- Enhances product validation and standardization
- Information is decentralized, so all partners with access are perfectly synchronized
- Blocks can be made public, private, or a combination of both
- Businesses can get rapid access to a set of information
- Separate blockchain networks can communicate without sacrificing privacy
The Cost-Saving Benefits of Blockchain
Using blockchain to record information can enhance the quality of your business operations and save you money. For example, during the 2018 E. coli outbreak in romaine lettuce, Walmart’s use of blockchain technology reduced the time it took to track the source from seven days to 2.2 seconds. The time saved here also saved resources.
Adopting blockchain technology can save resources and cut costs
The streamlining and transparency associated with blockchain technology can have cost-saving benefits for anyone who wants to become a cannabis distributor. Though the overhead costs of establishing a blockchain platform within your business may be costly, over time your business will save money. Some of these cost-saving benefits include:
- Not needing a trusted third party to perform secure record-keeping
- Reducing the need for staff and oversight to perform tracking, reporting, and auditing
- Quickly identifying errors that result in lost profits
- Avoiding costs associated with regulatory infractions
Do you want to begin your cannabis retail training?
Contact AAPS today!