Enhancing Brand Transparency and Efficiency With Supply Chain Traceability

Supply chain traceability is the ability to track, trace, monitor and verify all aspects of a product’s journey, including materials, parts and processes from sourcing through production to delivery. 

One part of this ability is knowing where things are in the supply chain, and another is having actionable insights into how they got there.  

It’s not just about knowing that a certain material was sourced in a specific country, for example, but also how that material was sourced and the journey it takes to become part of the finished product.   

For consumer brands focusing on sustainability—such as tentree or Patagonia—this two-pronged approach to traceability is key to building customer trust. In tentree’s case, they follow a Supplier Code of Conduct that not only ensures their materials are sustainable, but that they are ethically sourced as well. 

Their Code of Conduct outlines the company’s commitment to ensuring suppliers follow strict standards for worker rights, compliance with local laws and safe working conditions. It’s part of a larger traceability initiative that ensures tentree follows its core values as an “environmentally progressive” brand. 

Supply chain traceability offers stage-by-stage visibility into how a product is made, so every touchpoint between raw materials and finished goods includes valuable data points and insight. This data helps brands create compliant, sustainable and reliable products with upstream and downstream traceability. 

• Upstream traceability focuses on materials and unfinished components of a product, ensuring that parts or pieces of products are accounted for.  

• Downstream traceability: follows stages closer to the consumer, including production, delivery and post-delivery service—ensuring that brands know what happens to their products even after they’re manufactured.

Data is at the core of traceability, to be sure, but it’s what data allows businesses to do that makes transparency so important. With accurate, real-time supply chain data at every stage, companies can make informed and time-sensitive decisions that lead to better products, better operations and production resiliency. 

On the other hand, a lack of data leads to uninformed decisions, product delays, recalls and supply chain disruptions that can’t be immediately solved. If a supplier or partner runs into their own challenges, a lack of high-level traceability can make it difficult or even impossible for companies to identify where their supply chain is disrupted—and how to fix it. 

A 2019 report from Business Continuity Institute found that 65% of companies surveyed had faced at least one supply chain disruption each year.  

And according to a 2024 McKinsey survey, “once companies experience a supply chain disruption, it takes them an average of two weeks to plan and execute a response—much longer than the typical weekly cycle for sales and operations execution.” 

If a materials supplier is accused of using unethical labor practices, for example, the fashion and apparel brand working with the supplier may have no reliable way of confirming the allegations. It may also not have the agility to quickly pivot to other suppliers without the issue becoming known to stakeholders and customers.   

What can become a chaotic, costly and time-consuming investigation into supply chain issues could have been prevented with a cohesive traceability program implemented in the first place. Of course, this is easier said than done, but the point is that when it comes to traceability, prevention is far better than cure.   

Data visibility is even more important for businesses that operate on a complex global scale. With so many economic forces at work, global brands require end-to-end traceability to anticipate and solve challenges at every turn. 

A lack of traceability can also lead to: 

• compliance and product violations  

• damage to brand loyalty and customer trust  

• inefficient quality control and reliability 

• missed sustainability benchmarks  

• significant financial losses due to recalls and delays 

An effective traceability program can help companies avoid these pitfalls by focusing on compliance, customer trust and resilience, which is defined by the 2022 Economic Report of the President as “the ability of supply chains to recover quickly from unexpected events.” 

Fortunately for diligent companies, numerous technologies can help improve traceability. Some of the most common tech solutions include blockchain technology, product lifecycle management (PLM) platforms, IoT tech, AI and machine learning.   

Blockchain technology

A 2025 Research Nester report found that the market size for blockchain in traceability was $3.02 billion in 2024 and is expected to skyrocket to more than $106 billion by 2037. 

This shift isn’t surprising: blockchain provides accurate, transparent tracking of data and goods that can’t be altered or tampered with. This level of security and record-keeping makes blockchain a cornerstone of the future of traceability.  

PLM software

Product lifecycle management solutions are synonymous with traceability because they allow companies to manage product development workflows from start to finish.   

This all-in-one approach focuses on data unification for faster time-to-market and products that better match consumer preferences and market demands. By centralizing data and processes, PLM makes it easy to track and trace processes, materials, parts and production of goods from conception to delivery.   

“One of the biggest challenges we face is traceability throughout our entire supply chain,” tentree CEO Derrick Emsley said in a Centric PLM™ case study. “Chain of custody is a huge challenge, particularly in sustainable materials where you’re making claims about where this product was sourced, how that organic cotton was actually farmed, and the ability to track and trace that through each individual product.” 

With PLM, companies track products from end to end and gain actionable insights into performance at each stage of development—from material and sourcing compliance to efficient production and delivery. 

“Traceability systems powered by tracking software and Big Data will help fashion brands focusing on sustainability to reach far into their supply chains to understand the entire lifecycle of their products,” notes McKinsey’s The State of Fashion Technology (2022).  

IoT Technology

Internet of Things (IoT) tracking devices can provide real-time tracing and tracking for the physical location of goods and materials. This can be particularly helpful in fast-paced industries that require products to move quickly from stage to stage or through various locations.  

Physical tracking is also helpful in markets where goods—such as food and beverage or cosmetics and personal care items—may have limited shelf lives and may need to be replenished or moved often.   

AI and Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are still in the early stages of disrupting retail industries, but this technology is already helping many companies improve their traceability efforts.  

By analyzing large amounts of data and patterns, AI technology can often find supply chain issues or vulnerabilities that may not be obvious otherwise. This tech can also help forecast and anticipate potential disruptions and challenges before they become more pressing obstacles.  

An AI system that can anticipate delays in raw material production, for example, can suggest alternative, if temporary, suppliers and partners to avoid extended downstream production delays.  

Implementing an effective traceability program is no easy task: it requires communication and collaboration between stakeholders, teams, suppliers and other partners who are needed to produce and deliver goods.  

But the long-term benefits of traceability far outweigh the barrier to getting started. It’s a daunting challenge, to be sure, but with the right approach it’s an achievable goal that can harness competitive advantages for years to come. 

Here’s a high-level overview of implementing traceability standards that focus on sustainability, transparency, compliance and efficiency.   

Identify Traceability Goals

According to WEF’s 2021 traceability report, the most common goals for traceability among surveyed execs included compliance (20%), reliability (18%), customer engagement (15%), efficiency (12%) and sustainability (12%). 

Before embarking on your traceability journey, you’ll want to identify which of these–or other—goals are at the forefront of your business objectives. In complex industries with many regulations, compliance may be the top concern. 

For brands like tentree, customer trust and sustainability may be the guiding principles. Having these goals in mind can make the already complicated task of traceability easier to manage by having a clear direction forward.  

Map the Supply Chain

To be effective, supply chain traceability, by definition, has to include all of the supply chain. Mapping the product journey from end to end can help identify where traceability is needed the most—and where it’s lacking. 

Ensuring every touch point in the supply chain tracks critical data is the first step to identifying potential issues and the need for more oversight. Mapping out the value chain can identify blind spots that are often overlooked and can flag potential disruptions or vulnerabilities before they become costly errors.   

According to a 2022 EY survey, about 50% to 70% of a company’s operating costs may be tied to their supply chain, so it’s worth exploring every aspect in order to identify core areas of improvement and cost savings.   

In a PLM platform, companies can streamline this process by visually mapping out their supply chains in a way that’s easy to see from a high level.   

Communicate Expectations to Suppliers

Clear and open lines of communication with suppliers and partners are essential to traceability. After all, it’s tracking and tracing the things you can’t see—what happens outside your control—that you’re looking to monitor.  

Once you’ve set your goals and mapped your supply chain, it’s essential to set expectations with suppliers to make collaboration beneficial to all parties. Stronger, more resilient relationships and better supplier communication can eventually lead to more efficiently produced and cost-effective goods.   

To foster buy-in with suppliers, you can create a Supplier Code of Conduct—similar to that of tentree—that outlines the traceability and sustainability standards you expect suppliers to follow. This can be a collaborative process that also considers supplier feedback and goals.    

Decide What Technology You’ll Need

Every company, supply chain and industry requires varying levels of traceability, which means there’s no one-size-fits-all technology platform.   

To find the best tech solution for your goals, research technologies like blockchain, PLM, IoT, machine learning and other tools that can track your specific products and objectives. If physical tracking of inventory is a priority, for example, consider IoT devices that easily trace goods as they move across your value chain.  

On the other hand, consider an end-to-end solution like PLM for comprehensive visibility that spans the entire product development process. With PLM tools, companies can manage product workflows, teams and processes in one place, so there’s no siloed data or stakeholders left out of the loop.   

Assess Performance and Adapt Proactively

Traceability is a process rather than a destination: the need to iterate and adapt never stops. Once your traceability efforts are in place, you can regularly monitor its progress with KPIs focusing on compliance, efficiency and data accuracy.  

Continually monitoring and adjusting your approach to traceability will help optimize your results for maximum impact. This also makes it easier to change and adapt to supply chain disruptions down the road once you have firm traceability benchmarks in place.  

Traceability is about future-proofing your business and supply chain to endure disruptions, market changes and ever-evolving consumer preferences. Without the correct data at every stage of the supply chain, companies often don’t know where or what to iterate until it’s too late. 

To leverage traceability into the ultimate competitive advantage, Centric Software® empowers brands by making product visibility as easy as possible. Centric’s powerful suite of AI-enhanced tools and solutions simplify processes, centralize data and get products to market faster—when it matters most.