Blockchain and its Synergy with Enterprise Applications

Blockchain technology has gained a lot of fame in the last couple of years. It has been implemented in industries like supply chain, banking, healthcare, etc. However, to be integrated into an enterprise system, it is crucial that Blockchain connects with various business application systems like customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing execution systems (MES), warehouse management system (WMS), and others.

There are many benefits of integrating Blockchain with these systems:

· Many firms build, purchase, track, and different ship products, integrating with Blockchain into the infrastructure will give a copy of all the information of these processes into a network which is immutable and can be tracked and used as a proof at any time.

· ERP systems process information related to financial transactions. With the integration of Blockchain, they can get more reliable and transparent.

· Integration of Blockchain with ERP, MES, and WMS systems will reduce disputes over shipments, invoices, purchases, and returns.

· Blockchain will also bring transparency about the origin, movement, and possession of products in the ERP, MED, and WMS systems.

· It can bring in clarity around the chain of ownership and customers when integrated with CRM.

All the above-mentioned benefits can be categorized into two types. First, Blockchain brings transparency, and second, it reduces the cost of tracking of shipments and goods, which is pretty high in a multi-national company.

There can be three major potential growth areas for Blockchain companies:

1. The inventions of middleware technologies which will be able to integrate the ERP systems with different Blockchain networks.

2. Identification and development of use cases which can benefit from the Blockchain network.

3. Blockchain as a service (BaaS).

There are companies in the market that have already developed middleware and are improving them even further. There are many use cases of Blockchain network, especially in the logistics area of the supply chain. As per the survey results of IBM — There are more than 100 million dollars of invoices worldwide which are in dispute between the buyer and supplier at any given point of time, and it takes an average of 44 days to resolve it.

Majority of these disputes can be resolved using Blockchain. The information related to the contract, proof of origin, proof of delivery, proof of receipt, and proof of payment, all of this can be sent to the Blockchain network which will be time-stamped, encrypted, and then stored.

In case of a dispute, the Blockchain network can easily be accessed to check the accurate data, and things can be settled in a couple of minutes. Similarly, in the case of any disagreement between the vendor and customer on the price or discounts on a product, this data can be transmitted to the Blockchain network and can be referred.

Procurement information like purchase agreement and purchase order (PO), which are kept in the ERP system, can be stored in a digital format on a Blockchain network. These digital assets will only be available to members with the private key, thus removing the need of going through email, mail, or fax. The data will be completely transparent; only the sensitive information will be available to members with the right credentials.

The replacement of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) can be another powerful use case of Blockchain. In a Blockchain network, EDI messages are shared with members using Blockchain nodes with confidential data stored and accessed only through the private key.

Agreements, contracts, certificates or other Document attachments in purchase orders and sales orders can be stored in a Blockchain that will be connected to the transactions, leading in complete transparency and ownership. In the year 2013, global trade value reached around €13 trillion, out of which 2.5 percent were pirated and counterfeit products, making it worth almost €338 billion. With the ability of Blockchain to track products, such trade loss can significantly be reduced.

For most of the enterprises, it is difficult to directly invest in building a Blockchain network of their own and even more challenging to bring all their relevant parties into it. So this challenge led to the concept of blockchain-as-a- service (BaaS), where they will only utilize and share an existing Blockchain rather than creating their Blockchain infrastructure. There are many companies out there, which are developing these frameworks, architecture, and platforms.

Recently, BlockCluster launched their very own Blockchain-as-a-service Module based on Hyperledger Fabric — PrivateHive. What gives PrivateHive an edge over other similar services is that it allows connecting different BlockCluster deployments on BlockCluster Cloud, Private Cloud, and On-Prem, with each other and form a decentralized network.

Conclusion

A lot of research and experiments have already been performed with Blockchain to build several applications. However, there is always some room for growth. In enterprise applications, Blockchain-as-a-Service seems to be the most cost-efficient and fastest way for the companies to implement Blockchain in their business processes.

Blockchain Management Systems (BMS) are the platforms that offer companies the flexibility to choose from multiple Blockchains and platforms. BlockCluster is a BMS designed to develop DApps for enterprises with minimal coding, thus saving much time required for the development. The developers can choose from various Blockchain protocols available and deploy the solution either BlockCluster’s cloud, Private Cloud, On-Prem, or Hybrid Cloud.

Developers can create any asset-based use case and control privacy, permission over the assets, and issue assets to other users with minimal coding,

Utilizing BlockCluster, DApps can be developed with just a few clicks for the popular OS like Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, etc. As of now, BlockCluster supports the following protocols: Quorum, Dynamo (modified Quorum), Hyperledger. We are in the process of developing support for Corda and Multi-chain. It is an ideal platform to cost-effectively perform PoC (Proof of Concept) and test out ideas before building production-grade solutions.

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