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Top1. Introduction
Corona virus has affected the world which was caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), initially discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The unprecedented spread of this virus has created a slew of problems that have shaken the foundations of established businesses. One of the primary characteristics of the contemporary era is technological advancements, which may assist us overcome the obstacles provided by COVID-19 (Kalla et al 2020). The introduction of new technologies has produced efficiencies, innovative products, and close customer relationships. The recent technology among them is blockchain technology. Blockchain is a network of peers, signing and consensus protocol, ledger, and smart contracts. It is non-controversial and is being successfully applied to both commercial and non-commercial applications. By allowing digital information to spread but not be copied, blockchain offered a new type of internet. Ethical policies related to data transparency are executed using smart contracts (Emrouznejad, A. 2016 and Bertino et al., 2019). Even though originally it was devised for the digital currency, Bitcoin, the tech community is finding other unexplored uses for it. The apparel industry is no exception. By introducing effective use of smartphones, IoT (Internet of Things), social networks, cloud technology, and analytics, Blockchain has revolutionized business models in a new perspective to security, safety, resiliency, and effectiveness of systems, and ethical requirements in the digital world (Bertino et al., 2019).
Modern companies, primarily online or e-commerce traders, collect and pile large amounts of consumers’ personal details (big data for their users/customers about liking, habits, geolocalization, shopping, family detail, personal information, previous searches, and social networks), and maintain up to date record of all their previous transactions (Emrouznejad, A., and Marra, M. 2017). Experts opine that this is just the beginning and big data is maintained and used by few multinationals, but considering its benefits, very soon, every local trader will base most operational decisions on such big data. Such an exercise is repeatedly discussed to as data-driven algorithms and data-driven decision making (Zhi, Liao, and Emrouznejad 2021). With the fast-changing business environment where the customer is the reason for the success and failure of any business, future growth increasingly depends on trusted partnerships. But increasing regulations, internet crime and online fraud, ethical concerns pose a threat to business expansion. To address these modern challenges post COVID-19, blockchain offers more responsive value chains, quicker product innovations, enhanced customer relationships, and faster integration with the IoT and cloud technology and all of this is at a lower cost of a trade. Further, it facilitates smart contracts, strong engagements, and pacts with intrinsic, robust cybersecurity features. This study attempts to discuss the much talked but less understood issue in the modern perspective and demonstrate the application of blockchain technology post COVID-19 in multiple avenues, especially in the apparel industry.
A modern business has now become a very competitive and demanding enterprise. It necessitates a transptracearent system to establish successful and long-lasting customer relationships. Companies are now getting accustomed to digital realism and have been using the same in their daily operations. This study focuses on apparel and its allied industries. The reason for selecting apparel industry is the need for traceeablity that has emerged as one of the crucial requirement for a multi-site and multi-tier production (Aggarwal et al. 2021) and emerged as one among the badly hit sector due to COVID-19 crisis. Traceability facilitates discernibility and tailors to the consumer necessities of limpidity and quality assurance (Aggarwal 2018, 2021). It also addresses prevailing evils of information disproportionateness, low visibility and encourages ethical buying practices by assuting product authenticity (Bullon et al 2020). The use of blockchain (tracking and identification feature) allows fashion and textile industry to control and monitor their articles, directly from the stage of production to its purchase by the end consumer (Elmessiry 2018).