In the modern world full of technological solutions and innovations, companies are looking for new ways of cutting costs, increasing productivity, or attracting customers by being highly-transparent and open. Such needs can be satisfied by a number of techniques, but one of the most recent and revolutionary is known as blockchain technology, which can help enterprises in different fields and stages of development to be open, modern, and engrossing for consumers.
There are many examples of using this technology by large, medium, small, or even microenterprises throughout the world but we, a team of 3IPK, would like to focus on the most fascinating and different methods of using it in the cases of firms and show you, the readers, effects of such solutions on their day-to-day life.
WALMART AND SAFETY THAT IT PROVIDES
Walmart, one of the biggest retail corporations with a revenue of more than $500 M, has started to cooperate with an IT-giant, IBM, in terms of blockchain technology. Such a program plays a significant role in the way of traceability of products: where, how, and in what conditions they were produced, what were the main supplies, and how the delivery process looked like throughout the time.
These all showed the interest from customers, because they wanted to know more about the supply chain process, and be sure that it was safe for them to consume such products, because every year 1 out of 10 people around the globe falls ill after eating contaminated food, and 420 000 of them die. For that reason, it is crucial to be transparent and truthful.
“We do not believe traceability is a goal, we believe that transparency is the ultimate goal” — Frank Yiannas, Walmart’s Vice President of Food Safety.
The biggest challenge in the technology implementation was the training of staff, who were used to working with Excel sheets and other programs that were needed in the process of data entry before. However, they managed to deal with it, and today Walmart uses blockchain for more than 25 products and is planning to expand the list.
The fun fact is that the company was pretty skeptical about implementing this technology because they were using a lot of solutions for transparency before, but none of them was successful. Nevertheless, after figuring out the process and way of using it, Frank Yiannass had only one feeling:
“I really had an “aha” moment once I deeply understood the technology.” — he said.
NESTLÉ BREAKS NEW GROUND
Similar to Walmart, Nestlé decided to show its consumers more about the product that they consume. The company wants to show all the steps of a supply chain. The pilot project was held in 2019, where Nestlé, in cooperation with OpesSC tracked milk from farms and producers in New Zealand to Nestlé factories and warehouses in the Middle East.
“We want our consumers to make an informed decision on their choice of products — to choose products produced responsibly. Open blockchain technology might allow us to share reliable information with consumers in an accessible way.” — said Magdi Batato, Executive Vice President, Head of Operations, Nestlé S.A.
After the pilot project, the company decided to expand a practice of tracing the supply chain to its Zoégas coffee brand. By scanning the QR code on the packaging, consumers can follow the coffee journey from the growing locations to the Zoégas factory in Helsingborg where the beans are roasted, ground and packed.
ALBERT HEIJN AND THEIR EFFICIENCY WITH BLOCKCHAIN
Albert Heijn, a Dutch food retailer, that has a huge number of shops in Europe and worldwide, has decided to use this technology not only for traceability and transparency but also for the efficiency and money-saving it can bring in the process of delivery, unpacking, and all paperwork that is related to them.
The corporation did not want its staff to perform irrelevant work that can make all the process longer, difficult, and more expensive. Therefore, they decided to develop the solution based on blockchain technology that would let them maximize efficiency and decrease cost. Also, it was quite a big step in the way of helping its employees to feel more comfortable and less stressed about being in a rush because of the paperwork that had to be done.
“It would be great if all our work is paperless in the future” — Arjan Duguesnoy, Operational Manager Besturing — Albert Heijn.
Therefore, now workers spend less time filling forms, for example now drivers spend 20 minutes less on delivering and unpacking, and the company is sure the accurate information was inwritten with the usage of blockchain technology.
“The solution was replacing lots of paperwork. Very smart blockchain technology allowed everyone to view and act upon the same information at any time” — Mark van der Drift, CEO-Cornelissen has said.
TRUE TICKETS COMPANY AND THEIR SOLUTION AGAINST FRAUD
Have you ever had problems with the ticketing process or seen ticket scalpers out every show or a concert you were going to visit? Many people certainly have. During the very long period of time, artists, concert-organizers, or just viewers, did not do anything with this fact, because they simply did not know what to do. However, one company decided to change everything, including fraudulent tickets and ticket scalping, and to be a so-called “game-changer”, by providing an interesting and high-tech solution.
True Tickets company developed a tool using the hyperledger platform, that can help to prevent fraud and provide more transparency and comfortability to fans, or artists.
The system is built on the principle of a contactless digital ticketing delivery, so it makes buying, selling, and transferring entertainment tickets simple and safe. Good sides of this solution include putting control of the ticket back into the hands of the primary ticket issuer, providing significantly more customer and pricing data to the issuer, controlling the resale prices in the secondary markets, or significantly reducing fraudulent tickets and the associated costs & fees that they cause.
Therefore, the beneficial sides of this program will simply be performers, who want a fair division of place on the event, and event-goers, who would be amazed by comfortability and transparency.
Finally, this system started to be used by Tessitura, which serves over 700 not-for-profit arts and cultural institutions worldwide, to buy tickets only electronically due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
What can we learn from this?
We have just mentioned a few examples of using blockchain technology: from the transparency it provides to the cost-saving and lower paperwork that we can get from it. Such solutions can lead us all to the future we all want: highly-technological, transparent, and paper-free.
A lot of IT-companies, including 3IPK, help retailers, producers or big corporations to be modern, efficient, transparent, and go to that future mentioned above together. Our team has created a great example of such a solution, LYRA Chocolate, allowing all customers to see the supply chain and feel more comfortable and sure about the products they are consuming.
