Newsvendor enabled with blockchain

Blockchain Technology (BCT) has been widely embraced as a disruptive technology. This chapter examines the technology adoption for Newsvendor model (a.k.a Newsboy), as exemplified by a blockchain system. It aims to shed light on how BCT adoption impacts the optimal ordering decisions and the corresponding optimal profit. Importantly, we investigate the optimal adoption of technology for profit optimization while considering the adoption cost. As a part of our results, we visualize how technology adoption shifts the curve. For some selected demand types (e.g., Uniform) and the Cobb-Douglas cost function, we derive closed-form expressions for the optimal decisions, based on which some useful insights have been developed. Although high adoption of BCT leads to higher demand and lower ordering cost, some counter-intuitive examples have been devised to reveal that the increase in adoption degree might lower the optimal order quantity and it is not always profitable to adopt a higher BCT even if there is no adoption cost.