This article was originally published on FreightWaves.
In 2017, Chainyard partnered with IBM to develop the Trust Your Supplier (TYS) blockchain platform, which launched a couple months ago with 15 participating companies.
“[The platform] is providing a trusted source of supplier information to simplify and accelerate supplier onboarding, lifecycle and management,” said Alex Rosen, vice president of business development at Chainyard, at the 2019 Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA) Symposium in Chicago.
IBM is the first company onboarding suppliers through the system, and it’s saving a tremendous amount of time and money in the supplier onboarding process.
“This network will onboard tens of thousands of suppliers very rapidly because of the types of companies that have committed to use it,” Rosen said.
Headquartered in Morrisville, North Carolina, Chainyard is a consulting and implementation provider that has built over 24 blockchain projects and has four networks currently in production — one of which thousands of users rely on for financial transactions. Chainyard has been in blockchain production for four years, using both Hyperledger and Ethereum. It has 65 employees working on blockchain.
Chainyard’s blockchain solution responds to a common pain point among logistics providers: qualifying hundreds of carriers by validating documentation while managing risk and regulations is a convoluted and inefficient process. Onboarding and updating data is also inefficient when multiple parties are using different databases to manage the same data.
Chainyard built a trusted source of supplier information and digital identity (DID). The DID allows for persistent identities, meaning they don’t change over time; they’re cryptographically verifiable, decentralized and universally dissolvable.
“What we implement on TYS is self-sovereign identity (SSI) but for organizations,” said Mohan Venkataraman, Chainyard’s chief technology officer. “SSI is a mechanism by which the organization, individual or item holds the identity and can share and manage. TYS is seen as a digital passport for suppliers.”
Chainyard put together a network not just for suppliers and buyers, but for other parties like verifiers and insurers. While the supplier holds the DID, the insurer issues credentials to the supplier. The verifier validates those credentials, and the buyer is then able to trust the supplier. The credentials could be a university degree, a business license or insurance issued.
“TYS is all about qualifying the supplier and business partner by answering questionnaires on various topics, whether its diversity, environmental compliance or financial compliance,” Venkataraman said. “It also stores verifications from third parties, whether it’s verifying that the DMV number or address is correct.”
Building a blockchain network, Rosen said, is the biggest upfront challenge, but once the system begins to scale, the challenges become more technical. What’s imperative is making sure each player in the ecosystem — shippers, recipients, consignees, payers, brokers, carriers and logistics providers — finds value in the network.
“How TYS works is, we classify business objects into two zones: off-chain and blockchain,” Venkataraman said.
The off-chain zone is where they maintain data that’s necessary to keep but is not revealed on the blockchain. This data consists of member credentials data, personally identifiable data and application-specific data.
On the other side, blockchain data consists of publicly shared supplier data visible to all parties. Privately shared supplier data will be visible to two parties that have a contractual relationship. Public securely shared data can be selectively shared publicly.
“This looks like a regular application,” Rosen said. “If you’re using the application, you would not think that it’s blockchain. Under the covers, however, there’s a body of these companies that are working together to govern the dataset.”
This article was originally published on LinkedIn.
Creating a good demand forecasting system is a major challenge because it’s so hard to get trusted data. The difficulty is compounded by suboptimal sales forecasting — another symptom of siloed business data.
Good forecasting requires quality analytics, and that’s only possible with access to data from various sources, both internal and external. When every business in your supply chain handles data differently, the discrepancies lead to duplicative, often incorrect data that seriously impedes efficiency. That’s especially true for companies that have built up their ERP and CRM systems piecemeal over the years, using different systems for each.
With so many disparate systems, how can you ensure that the data you receive is trustworthy? There’s no way to know who validated it, nor a means of determining whether the data is consistent up and down the supply chain. Many manufacturers are turning to blockchain to close these gaps and ensure that all data can be trusted. Yet many still face barriers, as implementing an entirely new network across an organization and its supply chain can seem daunting.
Most companies already have forecasting systems, and the data they collect can be highly valuable. However, that value differs when every company’s systems are internalized and separate from those of other companies in their supply chains.
The solution is to standardize how the supply chain as a whole collects, analyzes, and shares data. A blockchain network provides the trust and data privacy required to make that standard a reality for every company within the network. Data within a blockchain network is inherently trustworthy because no single entity has control of the data or business logic. The data is written within the blockchain and can’t be altered or tampered with once written in the network.
The significantly improved data quality leads to equally significant value when it comes to demand forecasting. Orders can be fulfilled on-time, every time, and manufacturers waste less material and product while still keeping customers happy. That’s because blockchain enables data safety and security, which affects demand forecasting in two important ways:
Blockchain’s most fundamental value is the ledger of data that it creates and makes accessible to every member within your supply chain network. It allows all parties to have control over what data they share through an encrypted chain and to manage who has access to that data both online and offline.
The data you share is shared across the entire network, where every permissioned member can view it on his or her own ledger. No single entity, or even group of entities, can change or alter the data without every other member knowing. This blankets all data in the network with a level of security and trust that was previously impossible to attain.
Data regarding sales, inventory, manufacturing, and more are essential to the accuracy of your demand forecasting efforts, but many companies worry about risks of sharing more than they should. However, integrating blockchain technology doesn’t necessarily mean giving up control of all data or the legacy systems that house it.
Companies that collect high-value customer data may have the most valuable forecasting information but may also wish to leverage that data in new ways. Within a blockchain network, they can more securely share information on a permissioned basis without losing control over it and can even track the use of the data in order to effectively manage compensation for its use.
The key to solving your demand forecasting problems is to improve data integration from all parties within your supply chain. Blockchain provides the solution for companies to do so with optimal privacy and without losing any proprietary data. To learn more about how blockchain can improve your supply chain process, download our whitepaper
This article was originally published on Forbes.
Blockchain isn’t overhyped, and it’s no longer the utopian dream of a few crypto enthusiasts. A recent Deloitte report surveyed more than 1,300 senior executives from around the world, and 53% identified blockchain as a critical priority for 2019.
According to the report, blockchain has finally come of age. It’s evolving into a “mature solution poised to deliver its initial promise to disrupt.”
In short, blockchain is going mainstream.
With growing consumer privacy concerns, intricate global supply chains, and an infinite pool of sensitive data to manage, a tech solution with the potential to address all of these concerns could be the most important innovation of the decade. Think of your business’s biggest challenge or obstacle, and there’s probably a way blockchain can solve it.
To be sure, there are still plenty of naysayers who claim that certain blockchain applications are only theoretical. But that same Deloitte research shows that the world’s top business leaders have stopped asking whether blockchain will work and have started asking how it’s going to disrupt their industries.
Implementation and regulatory hurdles still remain a challenge, but 86% of leaders are confident that blockchain will reach mainstream adoption, according to the Deloitte report. Luckily, there are several ways you can use blockchain right now to solve your business’s most pressing problems.
Blockchain could be a solution to the woes of beleaguered industries like healthcare. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States — many of which are related to communications issues between providers. The growing fragmentation of healthcare, strict privacy regulations, and the high cost of data breaches make the healthcare industry ripe for disruption by blockchain.
Traditional data-sharing methods leave patient records vulnerable to theft, but blockchain eliminates this risk by creating secure “blocks” of data that can only be accessed or changed with a key code. This gives patients the ability to share their information with the providers they choose and add records to their health history.
London-based startup Medicalchain is already creating its own blockchain-based platform to store and share medical records. Doc.ai recently announced a partnership with Anthem to use blockchain in an innovative AI data trial to transform medical research. If your business relies on the ability to share records securely, blockchain could be the solution you need.
One of the greatest challenges facing manufacturers today is the increasingly complex and opaque global supply chain. A single iPhone has dozens of components manufactured around the world. It could have a Bosch accelerometer made in Taiwan, an audio chip made in Singapore, and a battery manufactured in China.
This makes it very difficult for brands to know exactly where their products originate, opening the door to illegal and unethical practices. It also means that companies have a hard time maintaining a record of products and locating those that get lost along the way. Blockchain is already solving these issues, with companies like Walmart, Nestlé, and Tyson getting on board.
“Creating new supplier categories and finding qualified vendors within each category is an onerous process,” explains Chainyard, a blockchain consulting company. “With blockchain, however, you can easily access supplier records, information from government agencies and insurers, and prior verifications completed by trusted parties, all in one place.” Because blockchain is essentially a decentralized digital ledger, it can be used for tracking, agreements, and secure payment. Blockchain works to eliminate supply chain disputes because every supplier and producer can view the chain of ownership on the exact same ledger.
Blockchain — which initially helped prevent fraud in banking — can also be used for media buying. Juniper Research expects fraud to claim approximately $42 billion from advertisers this year. The blockchain technology behind cryptocurrency can reduce this click fraud, allowing marketing leaders to manage spending while preventing fraud.
With blockchain’s open and distributed ledger, advertisers can track their investments throughout the process. But advertisers won’t realize this perk unless all parties in a transaction agree to use the technology. An Advertiser Perceptions survey conducted last year showed that only 11% of 300 U.S. agency and marketing workers had used blockchain for a transaction, so there’s clearly opportunity for increased adoption of the technology in the advertising space.
Blockchain can also streamline accounting practices in more areas than advertising spend. The technology can lighten the load for financial auditors, meaning they have more time to focus on anomalies. “Blockchain’s transparency gives visibility to all transactions for approved users, and this may decrease auditors’ work with sampling and validating transactions,” notes Ken Tysiac, editorial director of the Journal of Accountancy.
The applications of blockchain are no longer the pie-in-the-sky dreams of early adopters. This technology has the potential to disrupt nearly every industry and solve your business’s greatest challenges. By strategically implementing some new solutions, you can make your business more secure, more transparent, and more prepared for whatever’s next.
This article was originally published on LinkedIn.
When a customer returns an unwanted or defective product, it initiates a cascade of events that ripple all along the supply chain. Reverse logistics — keeping track of returned products and the reuse or disposal of their materials — is much more challenging than forward logistics.
Reverse logistics cost companies nearly $750 billion a year, FreightWaves reports, and e-commerce growth continues to drive those costs upward. Fortunately, FreightWaves’ research also shows that those costs can be alleviated by a logistics blockchain strategy. Such a strategy will also help companies improve efficiency and document responsibility in all reverse logistics operations.
It’s not that blockchain can solve every problem associated with reverse logistics. For example, blockchain can’t predict customers’ reactions to a bad product experience, nor can it anticipate the condition of returned equipment. However, blockchain can help companies alleviate many other pain points across most industries, such as the following:
Manufacturers in every industry — including automotive, electronics, toys, and food — struggle to manage recall situations efficiently. Efforts to limit corporate and consumer exposure to the problem usually lead to shotgun approaches that are highly opaque and inefficient.
Blockchain’s ability to improve manufacturing and quality control processes by enabling transparency across a supply chain is well-established. That same transparency facilitates quick, efficient recall management. To begin with, it can reduce the effort required to manage the recall, whether the manufacturer is issuing a return material authorization (RMA) to consumers or dealing with delays associated with recall notifications. Blockchain also provides for collecting normalized, trusted data from across the supply chain. With that data in hand, manufacturers can better negotiate with suppliers to reduce overhead costs associated with production and recall management.
Most notably, blockchain improves food safety because it allows unparalleled traceability. This allows for only the tainted products to be taken off the shelf, thus reducing both the waste and the time associated with recalling bad products. Over time, transparency on ingredient provenance will lead to higher-quality products by eliminating fraudulent and bad ingredients in the supply chain.
In addition to managing reverse logistics processes, manufacturers are also responsible for meeting sustainability and ethical sourcing objectives. The risks in asset disposal dwarf the risks of forward logistics, due mainly to the lack of transparency into a products’ aftermarket life cycle. Manufacturers must dispose of assets in ways that don’t waste resources or cause environmental harm. The stakes are even higher when manufacturers must meet regulatory and audit requirements as electronics, industrial machinery, chemical, and energy companies do.
Blockchain can provide end-to-end transparency that spans from sourcing through reclamation, recycling, and disposal. Manufacturers can streamline the recovery of raw materials for repurposing, make sure of proper disposal of waste, and ensure all company and personal data is properly destroyed. This also helps companies can more effectively measure KPIs against regulatory requirements and environmental initiatives.
Counterfeit spare parts impact both manufacturing and service industries, creating major risks for brands from both quality and safety perspectives. According to the 2018 Global Brand Counterfeiting Report, counterfeit accounts for roughly 3% of all global trade — about $1.2 trillion each year. Airline manufacturers are under particular pressure to ensure that counterfeit parts do not enter their supply chains. Tracing the provenance of all parts and tracking them through the life cycle of assets creates major headaches.
When blockchain powers the supply chain, it enables product authentication at the asset and part level. The improved data leads to improved predictive analytics, and companies can maintain a more accurate spare parts inventory. Third-party vendors have greater insight and can provide better overall service for the brand while reducing the counterfeit parts market.
Consumer brands often sell on the basis of the strength of their warranties. In the minds of consumers, that includes the level of service associated with warranty management — a time-consuming undertaking for companies. The inefficiencies are driven largely by logistics issues such as sales data verification, lucrative secondary markets, and ownership determination.
Blockchain eases these issues by providing reliable identity management to help prevent fraud resulting from identity theft. That includes securing personal data for security and privacy purposes, as well as facilitating robust loyalty programs for more efficient warranty operations and higher customer satisfaction.
Consumers expect the return process to be simple and streamlined, but companies have trouble meeting that expectation. With blockchain, improved transparency and trusted data help make reverse logistics much more efficient and effective leading to more satisfied customers. To learn more about how blockchain can improve your supply chain process, download our whitepaper.
11/12 to 11/13, 2019
11/14, 2019
https://www.freightwaves.com/live-chi
FreightWaves Live was followed up by Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA) member meetup following the conference in Chicago. At the meetup, Chainyard presented Trust Your Supplier in context of supplier digital identify and BiTA standard’s development.
11/11 to 11/15, 2019
https://www.fintechfestival.sg/
Chainyard‘s Gigo Joseph reviewing Trust Your Supplier blockchain solution and governance model at Singapore Fintech Festival. Presentation was well received with great interest from people in understanding more about this network.
This article was originally published on Linux Foundation Hyperledger Blog by Isaac Kunkel.
Hyperledger Certifications give experts a professional edge by providing globally recognized evidence of skills mastery, demonstrating ability within a specific topic.
Hyperledger announced the Certified Hyperledger Fabric Administrator (CHFA) designation earlier this year. This certification is earned by professionals who can effectively build a secure Hyperledger Fabric network for commercial deployment, including the ability to install, configure, operate, manage and troubleshoot the nodes of that network.
Hyperledger expanded the available certifications with the recently announced Hyperledger Certified Service Provider (HCSP) designation for companies that meet the following criteria:
As an active member of Hyperledger, contributing to the quarterly releases and participating in conferences around the world, Chainyard has the first requirement covered. Additionally, Chainyard’s business model, covering the second requirement, is to service enterprises, startups, and associations with their blockchain needs, whether they be advisory, engineering, operational or governance in nature.
Regarding the third, I am proud to say our first three engineers who obtained the CHFA designation are Ratnakar Asara, Surya Lanka and Ramesh Thoomu. All three were motivated to get the designation to validate their expertise and contribute to the company’s goal of obtaining the HCSP designation.
Obtaining this designation is important to individuals both to affirm what they know and for their personal development and growth. Here is what our first three engineers to obtain the HCFA designation had to say.
Achieving Certified Hyperledger Fabric Administrator (CHFA) is a big milestone in my career and demonstrates my skills, knowledge and competencies to build a secure Hyperledger Fabric network for commercial deployment including the ability to install, configure, operate, manage, and troubleshoot the nodes on that network.
Working in multiple blockchain projects through Chainyard gave me opportunity in exploring Hyperledger Fabric in depth and boosted my confidence in taking this exam.
– Ratnakar Asara
CHFA is highly recommended because it helps one to understand the core Hyperledger Fabric network fundamentals with emphasis on building Hyperledger Fabric network, operations and maintenance. It also helps organizations to build Hyperledger Fabric blockchain skill sets for its employees.
Phenomenal efforts have been put forward by the Hyperledger team in designing the content of CHFA. Thanks to the Linux Foundation.
– Ramesh Thoomu
“I have been working with Hyperledger Fabric for over two years. When I heard about the opportunity to become Certified Hyperledger Fabric Administrator, I made up mind to do it. I am grateful to Chainyard for their trust and encouragement to become Certified Hyperledger Fabric Administrator.”
– Surya Lanka
For our company, the designation separates us from the competition and provides an objective affirmation by a respected organization, the Linux Foundation, of our capabilities with Hyperledger Fabric.
Our team has worked on many Hyperledger Fabric projects running in multiple data centers and public clouds on projects across many domains. The experience the team has obtained over the past four years is tremendous and enabled Ratnakar, Ramesh and Surya to pass the exam. Their dedication to their craft, careers and our clients, helping them to solve many problems, allowed them to pass this exam and validate their expertise with Hyperledger Fabric.
We are happy to say we have additional engineers in the pipeline who have committed to work towards this designation. We work closely on our client projects, leveraging each other’s strengths, to deliver the best work. This collaboration will continue into the classroom as our expert level engineers have promised to hold extra whiteboard coaching sessions to help others in the company pass the HCFA exam. We look forward to having more engineers achieve this milestone.
As a company, we see the Hyperledger Certified Service Provider designation as a way to help better promote our company services and grow our business. Having the designation validates what we say to our clients, giving them greater confidence in our team, whether it be during pre-sales, while developing a solution or when resolving an operational issue.
Chainyard has been active with Hyperledger for four years and proud to have the HCSP designation to reinforce our commitment to the ecosystem.
This article was originally published on Linux Foundation Hyperledger as a press release.
First Wave of Hyperledger Certified Service Provides Includes Accenture, Ant Financial, Beijing PeerSafe Technology Co., Chainyard and IBM
Hyperledger, an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies, today announced the launch of its Hyperledger Certified Service Provider (HCSP) program. Members are pre-qualified, vetted service providers who have deep experience helping enterprises successfully adopt Hyperledger enterprise blockchain technologies. The first wave of companies to complete the criteria and qualify as HCSPs for Hyperledger Fabric are Accenture, Ant Financial, Beijing PeerSafe Technology Co., Chainyard and IBM.
The HCSP program offers service providers from around the world training and professional certification that ensures each member has the mastery to install, configure, operate, manage and troubleshoot networks built on Hyperledger distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). These certified service providers, in turn, offer support, consulting, professional services and training to enterprises embarking on their blockchain journey.
“As the pace of adoption for Hyperledger technologies accelerates, the need for support, training and other services has grown exponentially as well,” said Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger. “Enterprises are looking for partners with the expertise needed to deploy Hyperledger DLTs quickly and efficiently and to ensure ongoing success. By providing a structured program to train and certify service providers on core Hyperledger technologies, we are creating the infrastructure for both enterprises and services companies to meet the demands of deploying production networks and developing and supporting new applications.”
To become a HCSP, an organization must be a Hyperledger member, have three or more engineers who have passed the Certified Hyperledger Administrator Exam for a specific project and have a business model to support enterprise end users, including putting engineers at a customer site. Currently, certification is available for both Hyperledger Fabric and Hyperledger Sawtooth. The Certified Hyperledger Fabric Administrator Exam and Certified Hyperledger Sawtooth Administrator Exam are offered by the Linux Foundation Training.
Quotes from HCSP members:
“Hyperledger and Accenture are aligned in the collaborative mission to ensure Hyperledger technologies are deployed in a way that drives clients’ confidence,” says Tracy Kuhrt, a Senior Technology Architect at Accenture and Hyperledger Technical Steering Committee member. “We are proud to be a founding Hyperledger Certified Service Provider because it underscores that commitment. We look forward to continuing to drive the success and growth of Hyperledger technologies.”
“Ant Blockchain have been collaborating with Hyperledger in building blockchain ecosystems together, and we are happy to be certified by Hyperledger as an HCSP for our technical expertise,” said Shan Yu, Leader of Blockchain Cloud Service, Ant Blockchain, Ant Financial. “Ant Blockchain is dedicated to providing products and technologies for interconnecting various blockchain together, like BaaS for Ant Blockchain, Hyperledger Fabric and Quorum, and ODATS for heterogeneous blockchain (e.g., between Hyperledger Fabric and Ant Blockchain) interoperability.”
“PeerSafe is honored to be one of the first HCSP members,” said Ting Yan, CEO, Beijing PeerSafe Technology Co.,Ltd. “We have accumulated a lot of Fabric implementation experience in finance, government, IoT and other markets. We look forward to continuing to cooperate with Hyperledger to promote the development of enterprise-level blockchain as a certified service provider.”
“We are seeing our clients making significant investments in Hyperledger Fabric blockchain solutions. Managing the complex blockchain solutions and their networks requires expertise to ensure security, performance and scalability,” said Isaac Kunkel, Chainyard SVP Consulting Services. “We continue to be an active member of the Hyperledger community and excited to be the first company in the world to receive the Hyperledger Certified Service Provider for Fabric designation.”
“The addition of the Hyperledger Certified Service Provider program demonstrates continued progress in the maturity of the Hyperledger ecosystem,” said Jerry Cuomo, VP IBM Blockchain Platform. “Given IBM’s significant investment in Hyperledger Fabric, we are pleased to be among the inaugural certified service providers.”
For more on the impact of HCSP certification, read the post Hyperledger Certifications Give Experts A Professional Edge from Chainyard, the first organization to qualify as a HCSP.
Hyperledger is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration including leaders in finance, banking, healthcare, supply chains, manufacturing and technology. Hyperledger hosts many enterprise blockchain technology projects including distributed ledger frameworks, smart contract engines, client libraries, graphical interfaces, utility libraries and sample applications. All Hyperledger code is built publicly and available under the Apache license. The Linux Foundation hosts Hyperledger under the foundation. To learn more, visit: https://www.hyperledger.org/.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates – Gitex 2019
http://www.etisalcom.com/pressrelease/chainyard/
In its effort to provide the latest blockchain technology to its clients, Chainyard has signed a memorandum of understanding with Etisalcom, the Bahraini Telecom giant. Etisalcom will be able to provide Chainyard’s expertise and knowhow to its existing clients and customers.
About Etisalcom: Etisalcom is a leading information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider focusing on the Enterprise Sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Etisalcom was established in March 2005 as a new entrant Telecom Company licensed to provide National & Global Telecom and IT services. Etisalcom is the first private sector service provider, and a credible alternative, for fully integrated Information Communications Technology (ICT) solutions, including Next Generation Voice, Video and Data services, in the Kingdom of Bahrain and beyond. For more information, please visit Etisalcom online at www.Etisalcom.com or follow us on: https://www.linkedin.com/company/etisalcom-bahrain-w.l.l/
About Chainyard:
It is as important to mention that Chainyard has a team of blockchain experts that brings extensive experience in architecting, designing, building, testing, securing and operating complex distribution systems to help adopters of blockchain technology succeed. Chainyard’s main services are Blockchain Consulting, where they work with clients to develop blockchain strategy for their business to drive value, reduce cost, eliminate friction and create new revenue models. Blockchain Engineering, where they have wealth of experience architecting, developing and implementing real-world blockchain solutions for some of the largest companies in the world. Finally, Blockchain Operations, where the Chainyard team provide their clients with a complete view of blockchain technology operations landscape and work with them to integrate into their existing operational system.