Could Blockchain help drive Supplier Innovation?
What do coal, water, steam, textiles, heavy machinery, factories, electricity, combustion engines, computers, digital systems, internet, robotics and automation all have in common?
Answer: They have been responsible for the three most impactful Industrial Revolutions in the history of Mankind.
- Coal, water and steam allowed for the creation of the steam engine, which in turn resulted in large-scale manufacturing of textiles, goods and products.
- Electricity, combustion engines and automobiles allowed the industrial revolution to move from cities and expand across other countries and continents.
- Computers, digital systems and the Internet enabled the processing and sharing of information at a greater scale and amplified globalisation.
In recent times, a new set of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT and 3D Printing to name but a few, are starting to shape the so called 4th Revolution. Like the three previous revolutions, this one will have a major impact on people’s lives and the way business is done. However, one of the major traits differentiating the 4th Revolution to all the previous ones, is the sheer speed of innovation.
Despite all the threats and risks that every revolution entails, this particular one generates a unique set of new opportunities to transform and innovate across a whole spectrum of different industries, impacting not just companies, but every aspect of human life.
At Vizibl, our mission is to help companies innovate together, better. For this reason, we are currently developing a research project to identify what motivates, or hinders, suppliers from sharing their innovative ideas with their customers. As a starting point, we have developed a set of hypotheses on topics such as Trust, Communication and IP Management. We aim to explore and understand more about these relationships through surveys, discussions and interviews, as well as what could be done to help improve them.
We also believe that aspects of the 4th Revolution will have a major impact on how company relationships grow and improve, in order to further enable innovation and growth. Blockchain is one of the technologies that has emerged as potentially having a massive number of applications in the field of partnerships to drive innovation.
In the first stage of the research project we will ask ourselves if Blockchain could be one of the solutions to help improve supplier innovation. Paul Brody, Global Innovation Leader of Blockchain Technology at EY, provides a helpful “five-point test” in his article “How to turn technology into a competitive advantage” to check whether if Blockchain is a good solution to a specific use cases. These are:
- Are there multiple parties in the business ecosystem?
- Do you need to build trust between the parties?
- Are you managing finite resources?
- Is there a complex set of business rules that bind the parties together?
- Does the system as a whole benefit from some level of increased transparency?
Paul suggests that if you are able to answer “Yes” to at least three of these questions, then you might have a potential use case for Blockchain.
What do you think? From the list above, would you be able to get to the minimum of three ‘Yes’ for the case of supplier-customer relationships?
If you are interested in the project, please connect or follow Alex Basso Piñol and Vizibl on LinkedIn so you don’t miss out on how to get involved.
