The opinion that blockchain technology will be forgotten or will not take root has already been smashed to smithereens. Numerous facts, case studies and pilot projects have already confirmed not by words but by deeds that blockchain is being actively implemented in a B2B sphere by many companies around the world. Let’s take a look at how blockchain is doing in a B2B sphere today and what future is predicted.
We often used to tell you about how blockchain is ideal for many logistic operations. So, what successes have been achieved by now? Let’s take one striking example …
Since 2016, Walmart has been working with IBM to develop software which uses blockchain to track products throughout their supply chain from farm to consumer hoping to solve these problems. One of the latest pilot projects launched by IBM and Walmart was the delivery of mangoes. Perhaps, today it is one of the largest evidence of the blockchain’s practical implementations in the industry: 16 farms, 2 packaging factories, 3 brokers, 2 import warehouses and 1 processing plant. As a result, it takes less than 2 seconds to trace the origin of mangoes, while it used to take at least 6 days using traditional supply chain data.
Yes, on the one hand, research and pilot projects look quite promising, however, it is still too early to rejoice and talk about success, which could be expressed in some clear reasonable financial figures.
This point of view adheres to Mitchell Weinberg, the founder of the company Inscatech. Mr. Weinberg considers it unrealistic to rely that all the food we consume today can be traced using the blockchain. “If they’re selling a bottle of spices, let’s say, I would challenge them to say which plant that particular herb or spice came from,” he says.
However, Walmart’s vice president of food safety, Frank Yiannas has a counter argument. He acknowledges that tracking the five or 10 — or more — ingredients that can go into a single product is a complex undertaking, but also reiterates what an accomplishment it is to track even a single ingredient.
“Again, because it’s a fragmented food system — lots of paperwork, not digitized — so the idea of doing it in 2.2 seconds because it’s all recorded digitally is just fascinating, mind-boggling,” he says.
“To your point with the multiple ingredients,” Yiannas adds, “It becomes harder but it can be done. So, basically what you could do is you track back that the pizza was manufactured at a facility, and then you can track back all the ingredients that went into that pizza and where they originated from. But it adds a layer of complexity that would be very hard to do on paper.”
So we all need to understand that the complexity of worldwide blockchain implementation into production supply chains today is difficult because of the following aspects:
- It requires full participation from everyone within the system
- It requires honest participation.
The blockchain is really fantastic in terms of creating the trace of accounting paper that you are looking for to track money. But this does not work well in all sectors of the economy, because there is no confirmation of the accuracy of the information entered. It can be said that it works as well as the person who enters the information by their hands. For instance, in the pilot project with mango people downloaded checks and food safety certificates in the form of digital images and documents. What does it mean? The fact that any mistakes made on paper were recorded and permanently sealed in the recordings of blockchain. In theory, someone further down the line would catch any mistakes. But what if it’s something they can’t see? And what if nobody’s looking?
So let’s be honest! Initially, the data in the blockchain will not be cleaner than it’s today. However, over time, the quality of the data can be improved. However, putting information into a block chain makes it more accessible, making it easier to detect random errors and making it easier to track any intentional errors or fraud.
There is another important thing to understand here: B2B solutions are mainly based on the permission blockchain, and network participants can control who can see their information. Larger companies want to know who they work with and want to be able to control who sees the information, because this is important information for business. Sometimes it can be valuable data that makes your business competitive. Therefore, now it is difficult to understand what information Walmart wants to share with its partners, competitors and, ultimately, with its customers.
If we look into the future a little further, then we can say that in 10 years the majority of world trade will be conducted using the blockchain technology. These days there is an incredible flow of information that is difficult to control in trade, manufacturing and other areas. And the blockchain will take care of establishing order in this chaos. This technology will be used to combine disparate payment flows, physical goods and information. Yes, it will not be easy, and the creation of integrated solutions will take years. In essence, everyone creates an ERP system for a business ecosystem, and, alas, it will have to spend more time and effort than creating an ERP system for one company.
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Of course, these days blockchain faces barriers, challenges, problems. But, you know, such an idea has just come… As practice shows, the development and diversity of an individual, as well as movement to a new level of personality development can be achieved when you steadfastly passed through a series of crises, victories and fails, so-called “endurance tests”, sometimes not so super-sweet moments of life, anyway, over and over again you went ahead. At the same time renewing wild optimism, saving one best part of yourself and changing the other, you fought and kept moving directly to the desired goal. And hardly can be said that you were alone on that way. On the contrary, there were different people nearby: supportive, sincere, criticizing, wise, intelligent, skeptical, kind, cunning … All in all, different every time…
So, maybe this pattern is characteristic not only for people, but also for the material world, the world of technology? Thanks to people, their brains, energy, enthusiasm, people who push, move, support and promote the development of blockchain, it is still alive and benefit to the increasing number of economy sectors. And, according to the forecasts, it still has good potential.
What do you think of it? =)
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CertifyIt is a web quality certification platform helping manufacturing and supplying companies accelerate quality proof for international market partnerships and developing supply chain networks. CertifyIt helps SMEs increase trust and transparency of quality certification background on the international market.Passing quality certification on CertifyIt platform based on blockchain technology gives the opportunity to tell publicly about quality and implemented quality systems in the company. That significantly increases the credibility of the company primarily from B2B partners side, and subsequently end consumers one.
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