Blockchain-Integrated ERP Platforms for Ensuring Security in U.S. Financial Supply Chains

Abstract

To enhance the process to be more efficient and faster in decision-making, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have become widely used in financial and pharmaceutical supply chain in the United States. However, the traditional ERP systems continue to face a high risk of data manipulation, fraud, and counterfeit, which is threatening the integrity of the organizations and the economic stability of the countries. The present study addresses this gap by proposing a blockchain-integrated ERP security framework tailored to the financial supply chains in the U.S. The objective of the study is to test and analyses the existing weaknesses of the ERP, investigate the possibilities of applying blockchain as a security-enhancing layer, and develop a hybrid protocol that will ensure authenticity, traceability and resistance to fraud in financial transactions.

The basis of this paper is a mixed-method design, which will combine survey data of both IT and compliance managers in both the banking and pharmaceutical industries with a design science approach to generate and test the proposed framework. The proposed methodology is to locate key vulnerabilities in ERP, develop blockchain-supported protocols of data integrity and authentication, and test the datasets of ERP transactions to approximate the fraud detection and security performance rates.

The findings suggest that the adoption of blockchain can significantly reduce the possibility of unauthorized manipulation with data, enhance transparency in all operations carried out during transactions, and have audit trails that cannot be changed. The results of the simulation show that the accuracy of fraud detection and verification is higher with the traditional ERP models than with the simulation model. The proposed framework has theoretical and practical implications, as it added to the existing literature on blockchain-security, and also provided a potential path in the future of ensuring key financial infrastructures have been secured. The study has also given policy implications to the regulators on the compliance and data security of the U.S. financial supply chains.

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