Record Management and Blockchain

Photo by Launchpresso on Unsplash

By Paul Rapino, TF Blockchain Seattle Chapter Director

2019 has been a year of transformation for blockchain. While we saw big swings and positive momentum in its biggest use case - bitcoin, we also saw great gains in blockchain use cases at the enterprise level. Conference speakers across the globe will be debating the monetary future of bitcoin, at least until 2140. At TF Blockchain’s #TF4 conference at Seattle’s Triple Door, we set out to look not only at the currency, but also took a deep dive into crypto mining, and explored Blockchain in the Enterprise.

Gartner predicts blockchain’s business value will grow to slightly more than $176 billion by 2025, with projections to exceed $3.1 trillion by 2030. They also call out that there are four major blockchain initiatives that will drive the next big use cases after bitcoin. Blockchain as a disruptor, digital assets, efficiency plays, and record management. At #TF4, I hosted a very distinguished panel to go deeper on record management.

PANELISTS

Robert Mao - Seattle, Founder and CEO of ArcBlock - IaaS/PaaS for building networks

David Kruger - Denver, VP at Absio - Building security in the software

Kapi Attawar - Chief Revenue Officer at Samsung SDS Blockchain

Dr. Setrag Khoshafian - Chief Evangelist at Pegasystems - Customer engagement and Digital Process Automation. Expert in Digital Transformation through blockchain. Author of 10 books and a pioneer of “Value chain.”

Here are the key take-aways:

Record Management is defined as an organizational function devoted to the management of information in an organization throughout its lifecycle. While the concept has been around for a long time, blockchain is now transforming this function. Business Investment is building on the “internet of information” (1995-) and “internet of things” (2008-) to the “internet of value” (2016-) Blockchain is on the verge of redefining traditional business models, changing paradigms around data security, accountability, and transparency. Platforms, Services and applications are already digitally transforming record management.

Robert Mao from ArcBlock.io explained their new release to improve, refine, and ensure that their services are production-ready and are able to build enterprise-grade blockchains.

Absio.com VP, David Kruger, outlined how simple APIs now enable software developers with no cryptography expertise to easily add application-level key management, authentication and encryption to new and existing software without having to separately manage keys and certificates, buy and maintain hardware, or rely on a third-party services. Simple API integration is making it easier to quickly deploy programs on the “edge” and across the enterprise to take advantage of the chain of value across the ecosystem. Finally, Kapi Attawar and Dr. Setrag Khoshafian discussed how their work on Samsung’s Nexledger™ Universal blockchain along with Pega’s Digital Process Automation with out-of-the-box -warranty configurable workflows can help streamline and provide end-to-end visibility by securing supply chains and providing track-and-trace capabilities for parts and product warranty. According to their white paper, every year an estimated $50 billion is spent on warranty claims globally. Despite a reduction in the number of claims issued, there has been a noted increase in warranty costs across the supply chain. Organizations must manage both hard and soft warranty expenses to stay competitive. This case study is worth noting at:

https://www.samsungsds.com/us/en/insights/blog/using-dpa-and-blockchain-technology-to-improve-warranty-management.html

To summarize, the session highlighted the overall conference discussions around smart contracts and tokens that are currently impacting enterprise businesses. As per Wikipedia, A smart contract is a computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts allow the performance of credible transactions without third parties. These transactions are trackable and irreversible.

The token is a reference (i.e. identifier) that maps back to the sensitive data through a tokenization system. The mapping from original data to a token uses methods which render tokens infeasible to reverse in the absence of the tokenization system.

Look for these to become even more valuable tools in 2020 to drive new use cases.

In conclusion, it’s important to call out that every enterprise needs to consider their blockchain strategy. By looking at the value chain and customer touch-points of an organization, digital transformation will become more than a buzzword.

Paul Rapino is Head of Corporate Development for TF Labs and Seattle Chapter Director for TF Blockchain. Before his work with TF, Paul worked with two blockchain startups that focused on fractionalizing high valued assets with smart contracts. His prior work was as director of financial services at Microsoft in New York and Seattle. Paul has been a cryptocurrency enthusiast and investor since 2013.