Blockchain Platform Is Ripe For An Infrastructural Disruption !!TOP!!
Lain Lattin
Within the different facilities of a business, participants can reduce specific facility risks by leveraging satellites, IoT devices, and cellular networks connected to the blockchain. This allows them to monitor and provide real-time alerts about inventory levels and any disruptions at key inbound or outbound handoff points to upstream and downstream partners. Blockchain captures the collected data points as immutable records, which managers can access to trace and identify points of disruption and plan any necessary product reroutes. Blockchain also helps mitigate potential insurance disputes between parties by embedding insurance policies within smart contracts that will automatically execute their terms when triggered by a given event (e.g., weather-related disasters, cybersecurity attacks).
Finally, downstream, blockchain can help mitigate distribution risk. It allows organizations to build digital inventories that are accurate and immutable by implementing AI to obtain real-time insights into demand shifts, patterns, and potential disruptions. All that helps companies make informed planning and inventory management decisions and more effectively manage the flow of goods down to the last mile.
Overview: As blockchain technology continues to mature, its networks will require universal interoperability standards.15 Those will help ensure compatibility across different types of blockchain platforms and decentralized applications, as well as existing legacy technological ecosystems. These measures will enable cross-communications and verification of end-to-end transactions throughout the supply chain networks.
Overview: For global supply chain networks, the adoption of blockchain is still in its infancy. To spark further investment and encourage organizational buy-in, supply chain leaders should clarify the direct business value of blockchain technology to the C-suite of their enterprises. Leaders must also support further discussion on industry standardization of blockchain as well as the allocation of resources to develop critical internal blockchain expertise. Only then will leaders be in a position to advise on potential solutions, implementation, and integration with existing ERP systems and frameworks20 so they can minimize operational disruption.
The attraction for banks goes far deeper than cost savings or networking efficiency. Blockchains can underpin an evolution in RTGS, increasing the security of digital transactions and removing the potential for errors, confusion, double counting and fraud in bookkeeping. Accounting and audit work, in general, are prime examples of industries that are ripe for disruption from Blockchain.
Blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) has generated much excitement over the past decade, with proclamations that it would disrupt everything from elections to finance. Unsurprisingly, the much-maligned corporate form is also considered ripe for disruption. While certainly imperfect, and currently serviced by creaking legal infrastructure premised upon direct shareholdings, are its problems that of centralization/intermediation? What exactly are the limits of DLT? In this article, we propose to expose the ignorance behind the hype that the venerable corporation will either be revitalized by DLT or replaced by Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs). We will demonstrate that proponents of DLT disruption either overestimate the potential of the technology by taking at face value its claims of security without unpacking what said security entails (and what it does not) or lack awareness of the history of and market demand for intermediation as well as the complexities of modern corporations.
Now, both small startups and large-scale technology companies are looking to innovate around blockchain-based loyalty platforms. Travel companies with loyalty programs, whether standalone or part of a larger alliance, will need to consider when, not if, to adopt blockchain.
What shape are blockchain-based loyalty networks likely to take? Initially, each loyalty program might look to develop its own solution, but over time smaller loyalty programs likely would band together to compete more effectively with larger ones. Ultimately, we anticipate the development of four to six blockchain-based loyalty networks, each anchored by a major airline, a major hotel chain, or a group of smaller travel companies. Options for building and maintaining the blockchain platform could include a joint venture with technology partners or with network providers such as banks or payment card processors.
Getting in on the ground floor of blockchain platform development would help travel companies reduce these risks. Participating in the initial structuring of commercial agreements and partnerships will be essential to protecting critical loyalty program components, i.e., currency value, customer data and relationships, and transaction costs.
Jay Jacobs, Head of Research & Strategy and Pedro Palandrani, Research Analyst at Global X ETFs weigh in on the biggest sectors and industries ripe for disruption in the year ahead and how advisors can capitalize in their portfolios.
Interest in blockchain platforms has been growing significantly as a way to streamline supply chains, improve traceability, simplify trade and improve financial transactions. A lot of this interest started with the speculative frenzy surrounding Bitcoin, which is based on an older blockchain platform that faces challenges with energy consumption and speed.
Modern blockchain platforms have been developed to help overcome these limitations and provide practical value for other business uses and applications. "We are seeing multiple enterprises adopt blockchain platforms for some of their application needs," said Suseel Menon, senior analyst at Everest Group, an IT advisory firm.
Menon has seen the most interest in areas that require multiparty cooperation or data exchange. Blockchain applications in supply chain tracking, trade finance, digital assets and identity management are going beyond the pilot stage. Menon has also seen a fair bit of activity in using blockchain platforms for building certain functions of ERP, such as vendor management and supply chain management (SCM).
Alex-Paul Manders, partner and blockchain solutions lead at Information Services Group, an IT advisory firm, said the evolution of blockchain platforms to date has promoted heightened awareness of decentralized finance, or DeFi, for driving new business models that pose significant threats to traditional banking, finance and supply chain finance.
Manders predicted that blockchain platforms could disrupt legacy supply chain businesses and technology processes. For example, U.S. requirements for pharmaceutical companies to track and trace products and materials call for a new approach for supply chain participants to share and transact data more efficiently and with more transparency than previously required. Blockchain technology could be the answer.
Introduced in 2013, Ethereum is one of the oldest and most established blockchain platforms. It provides a truly decentralized blockchain that is comparable to the Bitcoin blockchain network. Manders said its key strength is that it enables true decentralization with support for smart contracts. Its key weaknesses include slow processing times and higher transaction processing costs compared to other platforms. Besides its role as a blockchain platform that underpins enterprise applications, it has its own cryptocurrency called Ether.
The Ethereum platform has seen widespread adoption by technologists who build decentralized applications, or dApps, on the Ethereum network. For example, there are numerous platforms and exchanges for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) -- a type of digital asset that can be exchanged on a blockchain. It has a mature ecosystem of tools for writing smart contracts using the Solidity programming environment, which runs on the Ethereum Virtual Machine. However, alternative blockchain networks can process transactions much faster at potentially lower cost than Ethereum, though many observers expect this to change after Ethereum adopts a more efficient security mechanism.
Blockchain platforms consist of a wide range of components, which enables enterprises to select the appropriate components for different kinds of capabilities, said Chris Georgen, founder and managing director at Topl, which built a blockchain for sustainability.
In development since 2014, Tezos is an older platform that supports decentralized applications, smart contracts and novel financial instruments, such as NFTs, which can be thought of as a modern variation on trading cards that are tied to digital assets. The platform supports a dynamically upgradable protocol and modular software clients that enable it to adapt to new uses. It supports a PoS consensus mechanism that improves efficiency compared to Bitcoin and the original Ethereum implementation. An on-chain upgrade mechanism allows developers to add new features without forking, which would require spinning up a new blockchain and migrating users over. The Tezos community has been upgrading the platform at a rapid clip with enhancements that improved performance and increased the size limit on smart contracts. It has also developed tools to help automate the process of weaving NFTs into enterprise supply chains.
The EOSIO blockchain platform was first launched as an open source project in 2018. It's optimized for developing decentralized applications and smart contracts. It uses a complex consensus mechanism based on PoS that provides better performance than older mechanisms, such as Ethereum, according to its proponents. It also includes support for a governance feature for voting on changes to the platform.
Key strengths include fast transactions and advanced account permission features for deploying applications. Over 400 applications have been developed on the platform, including identity management, SCM and gaming. The community also provides tools for customizing blockchain implementations for various decentralized use cases in SCM, healthcare and DeFi.
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