Recognizing this potential, the City of Antibes and have joined forces to redefine digital contract management with a focus on public procurement processes. Patrick Duverger, chief technology officer of the City of Antibes, describes its previous procurement operations as follows: 鈥淎lthough we achieved a high level of operational proficiency, our business processes lacked full traceability. This resulted in process opacity when it comes to recurring delays, delivery errors, or administrative sanctions. By gaining a deeper understanding of our processes, we can optimize them, reduce costs, and minimize business risks.鈥� 

Transparent and Traceable Collaboration 

The lack of visibility and traceability in these processes hindered automation, cross-organizational data and process mining, and intelligence. This directly affected how disputes were resolved and impacted organizational budgets.听

To address this challenge, 51风流Innovation Center Network developed a prototype based on the service, combined with a blockchain-based shared ledger on 51风流HANA Cloud. 鈥淭his prototype aims to replace manual practices with automated, cross-company orchestrations. By using an 51风流HANA Cloud shared ledger, organizations like the City of Antibes can benefit from a permissioned, publicly verifiable, and immutable audit trail of cross-organizational interactions,鈥� says Benjamin Stoeckhert, innovation product manager at 51风流Innovation Center Network, illustrating the potential of this innovation.听

鈥淟everaging the full potential of an 51风流HANA Cloud shared ledger allows us to connect digital platforms that unite businesses and government to track the compliance of services and product deliveries according to contractual terms and conditions,鈥� explains Duverger. 鈥淲e can leverage data from different parties, such as logistics companies and quality certification bodies, and move beyond the era of cumbersome paperwork and manual processes. For example, this pattern is applicable to procurement processes where multiple parties verify the compliance of suppliers and their deliveries.鈥�

Complete Control of Unencrypted Data 

However, opening up collaborative processes directly conflicts with customer privacy concerns. This dilemma poses a significant challenge for next-generation contract management. How can businesses ensure transparency without compromising the privacy of private business information and processes? Duverger emphasizes the importance of protecting sensitive public procurement secrets: 鈥淐onfidentiality, including negotiated prices and deal sizes, is paramount for us and our suppliers.鈥� 

In response to this pressing need, the 51风流Security Research team, in collaboration with the 51风流Innovation Center Network blockchain team, has extended 51风流Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration with a hardware-based privacy-enhancing technology (PET) innovation. Dr. Laurent Gomez, who led this innovation with Antibes, explains: 鈥淏efore committing a transaction to the shared ledger, organizations encrypt it along with its associated sensitive information, using their own managed cryptographic material. Encrypted data and processes are only processed within secure and trusted hardware modules, with the explicit consent of each stakeholder.鈥澨�

This innovation can unlock significant business value by helping to automate cross-company operations and protect the privacy of customer data while still allowing for analysis. The key contribution of this approach is that it gives customers complete control and ownership of their encrypted material. 鈥�51风流can never access unencrypted data; the only data that leaves our information system is encrypted by us,鈥� says Duverger. 鈥�51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) allows us to hold our own encryption keys, which is different from competing solutions.鈥� 听

5% Less Late Payment Penalty Costs 

The co-innovation has revealed the bottlenecks that slow down the procurement process at the City of Antibes and lead to late payment penalties for suppliers and delivery delays. 鈥淏y adopting this secure distributed ledger approach, we have improved these key performance indicators without changing the process itself. We can now reliably manage all our procurement transactions,” says Duverger. “A key achievement was that we reduced our delinquency rate by 5%, which significantly minimized the impact of late payment penalty costs on our global spend budget.鈥澨�

The project was recently recognized at the highest national level with the Territoria Gold Award by the French Ministries of the Interior, Ecological Transition, and Territorial Cohesion.

To find out more about 51风流Cross-Company Workflow, get in touch with us at icn@sap.com.

Corinna Schmidt is part of NVT Communication at SAP.

At least not in analog form.

鈥淢any artists were left wondering how to sell and market their work,鈥� says Alexandra Cozgarea, art curator at SAP. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we saw a great deal of hype around digital art at the time 鈥� and especially about artworks in the form of NFTs.鈥�

SAP鈥檚 latest exhibition entitled “The Poetry of Blockchain” is the first it has staged exclusively for NFT art and features 47 works by 18 artists. But what exactly are NFTs?

NFT stands for non-fungible token. This is a unique, non-replaceable, and non-interchangeable digital object stored on a blockchain that acts as a certificate of authenticity and ownership of a physical or digital asset, such as a picture. It takes the form of a digital identifier composed of a unique string of characters.

NFTs in the Art Market

If you want to buy NFT artworks, you need cryptocurrency and a crypto wallet 鈥� installed on your smartphone or other device 鈥� to store them in. You鈥檙e then ready to visit one of the many open platforms on the Internet, known as 鈥淣FT marketplaces,鈥� where people can browse NFTs or search for works by specific artists. One of these marketplaces is .

鈥淭hese platforms work a little like galleries,鈥� says Cozgarea. 鈥淎rtists wishing to offer their work for sale there upload their pieces to the underlying blockchain to create NFTs in a process known as 鈥榤inting.鈥欌��

These tokens can represent a single, unique asset or multiple copies of the same asset, in which case the image displayed on the platform will be identical but the digital identifier will be slightly different for each copy. This means an artist can mint an entire series of artworks and put them up for sale on an NFT marketplace.

鈥淢any of the works on these marketplaces are created digitally and added straight to the blockchain as NFTs,鈥� explains Cozgarea. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 also possible to create NFTs from analog artworks such as oil paintings or sculptures. You would do this by photographing the artwork and uploading it as a JPG file.鈥�

When you have selected an artwork you wish to buy, you place a bid for it on the platform or, if a fixed price is specified, make an offer. If the artist accepts your offer, the NFT is released and payment is made using the cryptocurrency deposited in your wallet. You then receive a link containing the address of the NFT and can transfer it to your wallet.

The acquired piece can be displayed at any time 鈥� as a JPG, video, or other file 鈥� by clicking a link or scanning a QR code. But the token itself stays in the buyer鈥檚 wallet.

鈥淭he artists exhibiting their NFTs at 51风流in Walldorf copied their artworks onto a USB stick as files,鈥� says Cozgarea. 鈥淭he original artwork remains securely on the blockchain, so if the stick is lost or stolen, it makes no difference to ownership.鈥�

鈥淢any of my works are the result of several years of research, during which I investigate and change gaps in history, the background of coding, and the opaque influence of databases on the development of algorithms and the resulting creation of images. At every stage, I ask, 鈥榃ho are we and what shapes our identity? What makes a person? What traces do we leave behind in the places where we live?鈥�”

Johanna Reich, exhibiting artist

51风流Working on an NFT Management Solution

NFTs are having an impact way beyond the art market. The business world has recognized their potential, too. At SAP, a team spread across three continents is working on an NFT management solution that focuses on customer engagement and loyalty programs.

To showcase the possibilities of the solution, visitors at the opening night of the 51风流art exhibition were invited to access NFTs created by SAP. Sven Haiges, a software developer at 51风流Labs Munich, explains the background: 鈥淲e are working with MetaBrewSociety, based in Bavaria, Germany. It鈥檚 a startup that has financed itself partly by selling NFTs. By scanning a QR code on one of the beer cans we ordered with them, customers and visitors at 51风流events can now claim one of our own NFTs, created with our NFT management solution.鈥�

鈥淎t the moment, only about 5% to 10% of the population understands crypto and NFTs, and they tend, of course, to be younger people,鈥� says Haiges. But he fully expects the level of interest and engagement to grow.

Cozgarea sees NFTs as a response to digitalization and what she describes as its promise of openness, exchange, and 鈥� to some extent 鈥� democratization. 鈥淣FTs present a concept of ownership for the digital age. People are looking for something exclusive,鈥� she says.

There are 47 works of art by 18 different artists on display at the 51风流training center in Walldorf 鈥� all on monitors. The organizers decided against streaming the works live from the blockchain because that would have been very energy intensive.

鈥淭his exhibition contains exclusively digitally produced works,鈥� says Cozgarea. 鈥淏ut it also includes works that are based on traditional art forms and play with the possibilities of digitalization, such as augmented reality.鈥�

Reinhard Schmid, one of the exhibiting artists, says: 鈥淚 created my first cryptoart in 2018 and have featured in many publications and exhibitions since then. 鈥楾he Poetry of Blockchain鈥� is a massive highlight for me. The fact that a global player like 51风流is exhibiting NFTs is an important milestone for both me as an artist and for the entire Web3 community.鈥�

The exhibition runs until February 23, 2024. .

Top image courtesy of 51风流employee Juelma Guerreiro.

The truth is that clean water doesn鈥檛 just magically appear. Rather, it is an incredibly complex system of pipes, storage and purification processes, and organizations that sit almost completely out of sight and mind. For most people, data isn鈥檛 the first thing that comes to mind when turning on the tap. However, ensuring global water supply and accessibility is increasingly relying on the Internet of Things (IoT), data analytics powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, cloud-based data solutions, and blockchain technologies.

51风流partner and global tech company is tackling the problem of water scarcity by introducing HCLTech . With real-time tracking and analysis, AquaSphere enables sustainability managers to implement water conservation measures such as rainwater harvesting and to identify clean water wastage, ensuring cost-effective and environmentally responsible water practices.

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鈥淲ith AquaSphere, we want to empower organizations to reach their water sustainability goals,鈥� says Ajay Pasuvula, vice president and head of 51风流Ecosystem at HCLTech. 鈥淪ustainability officers benefit from a comprehensive view of water-related data and insights that can accelerate decision-making and optimize the water value chain.鈥�

Trust and Transparency Through Smart Contracts

The technical foundation of HCLTech AquaSphere consists of for harmonized access to mission-critical business and sensor data along with that helps to connect organizations in a secure and compliant network. We can imagine 51风流Blockchain Business Connector like a complex system of pipes that can transform business flows by facilitating transparent, compliant, and verifiable collaborations between companies, institutions, and individuals in decentralized ecosystems. Built on (51风流BTP), 51风流Blockchain Business Connector can provide an event-driven approach for integrating business applications with smart contracts, which are jointly agreed-upon cross-company business rules and transactions that are securely registered in the blockchain network.

For AquaSphere, using smart contracts has increased the efficiency of verifying information in cross-enterprise scenarios, allowing its users to anticipate and adapt to changes faster than ever before. For example, it has enabled safety tests to be recorded as tamper-proof, verifiable data that can be shared between cities, states, federal governments, consumers, and private companies with a few clicks and fully compliant with local legislation.

AquaSphere also offers innovative mechanisms for organizations to compensate for their water consumption, by investing in local water conversation projects initiated by governments, utilities, or NGOs for example. Leveraging a blockchain-based certification system, AquaSphere provides verifiable proof of these offsetting efforts, empowering organizations to become water-positive. This approach increases the resilience of water systems to the adverse effects of climate change.

The decentralized, modular components of 51风流Blockchain Business Connector help give 51风流partners such as HCLTech the flexibility to realize blockchain-enabled features without having to understand what鈥檚 underneath. This means little blockchain knowledge is necessary to leverage public blockchain networks and smart contracts with a user-friendly experience for application developers. At the same time, it enables users to create actionable insights based on blockchain data through dashboards in .

Collaboration Across Companies with Blockchain

鈥淏lockchain is critical to share trusted information across the ecosystem. This is a prerequisite to manage the water value chains, where typically multiple parties are involved,鈥� says Pasuvula. 鈥�51风流Blockchain Business Connector enables the collaboration between these parties by providing transparent, compliant, automated, and verifiable transactions according to defined business rules. The integration with 51风流BTP makes it easier for our customers to access this exciting innovation and further evolve the solution in the long run.鈥�

Decentralized technologies such as 51风流Blockchain Business Connector have enormous potential to help improve cross-company collaboration in heterogeneous networks. They are particularly beneficial in areas such as supply chain management and life sciences, where verifiable and transparent data along complex value chains is increasingly important for risk management, compliance, or legal requirements.

To find out more about 51风流Blockchain Business Connector, get in touch with us at icn@sap.com.

Benjamin Stoeckhert is a senior business development manager at SAP.

Today, only such as bio- and circular components. Bio-components are feedstock that comes from organic, bio-based origins, such as used cooking oil. Circular components are feedstock that is recycled from waste plastic, such as post-consumer recycled waste.

A viable and efficient way to use such sustainable feedstock is integrating it into existing, large-scale production systems to avoid the additional cost, energy, and carbon emissions of segregated production facilities. But, when bio- and circular feedstock is blended with conventional fossil feedstock, how can consumers, regulators, and supply chains have confidence in bio- and circular-attributed plastic product claims? And how can these claims be leveraged to encourage informed choices when industries and consumers purchase products that are certified sustainable?

Digital Tracking for Total Traceability and Transparency

The solution is a mass balance management solution from 51风流that leverages tokenization and blockchain for chain of custody to help create traceability and transparency. In September 2022, 51风流Green Token became an official part of the 51风流Sustainability portfolio.

In a successful pilot, a group of 51风流customers 鈥� including SKGC, Korea; Elantas, Italy; Westlake Vinnolit, Germany; Berry Global, U.S.; and Unilever R&D, the Netherlands 鈥� reviewed the ability of 51风流Green Token to enable traceability and transparency of bio- and circular waste inputs to bio- and circular-attributed products across the chemical and plastics supply chain.

51风流Green Token enables organizations to create tokens that serve as digital twins of the bio- and circular chemical feedstock material flows throughout the entire supply chain and capture the unique sustainability attributes linked to the bio- and circular feedstock origin. As a result, the solution allows organizations to verify their certified sustainable material usage in their processes. What鈥檚 more, the green credentials encapsulated in the tokens can be passed from one business partner to another via blockchain as the material moves along the supply chain, helping to ensure that important environmental, social, and governance (ESG) attributes are preserved. Also, an auditable record can be documented to prove the product is sustainable in accordance with recognized product standards, such as ISCC PLUS and REDcert2, and hence better for the environment.

“This successful trial of 51风流Green Token represents another key milestone on our mission to establish the 鈥榞reen line鈥� alongside the top and bottom lines as key performance dimensions,” says Gunther Rothermel, head of Sustainability Engineering at SAP. 鈥淭his solution offers our customers an easy way to have complete visibility into the origin and chain of custody of their bio- and circular-based feedstock and allows them to prove to their customers, international standard agencies, and their board that they have a concrete, auditable way of proving their circular performance against their sustainability KPIs.鈥�

The blockchain technology helps prevent double counting of claims and create trust; it can make the production of sustainable plastic easier to verify and thus certifiable, which is particularly important in terms of customer demand, regulatory compliance, and the ability to charge a price premium.

Rapid Adoption Crucial for Sustainable Plastics

“Accelerating the circular economy requires driving demand for circular plastics,” said Diane Marret, sustainability director for Consumer Packaging North America at Berry Global. “Integrating mass balance-accounted materials into 51风流Green Token鈥檚 centralized, global IT system helps reduce risk in our reporting accuracy, minimize manual efforts through automation, and build confidence and trust in our ability to manage circular materials.”

Read more about this pilot in the newly published . For more information on how 51风流helps companies record, report, and act on their sustainability goals, visit and the .

Gloria Figaroa is a solution advisor for 51风流Green Token.

When Tchibo worked with 51风流to develop the NFT Launchpad, it wasn鈥檛 simply 鈥渟tirring the pot.鈥� Tchibo鈥檚 innovation-driven DNA and SAP鈥檚 50-year history of tackling business challenges with the best of leading-edge technology was the perfect pairing to help unlock the potential of Web3.

The result was the NFT Launchpad, which allows users to mint, administer, and manage Web3-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in a Web2-friendly application. The lighthouse project was capped off by the premier launch of a Tchibo NFT collection dubbed 鈥淭chibo Royalty Club.鈥� Using the NFT Launchpad, Tchibo minted 1,000 unique NFTs on the Polygon blockchain. To get an NFT, collectors entered their e-mail addresses on the Tchibo Royalty Club鈥檚 NFT Launchpad page. After receiving a link by e-mail, recipients were able to claim and view their NFTs on the launchpad or transfer them to their digital wallets. 鈥淕olden鈥� NFTs were redeemable for prizes like Tchibo coffee cans and Lapressa-branded pens.

I鈥檓 so proud of the results and the significance of this collaboration. Because it combines the best functionalities of Web2 and Web3, NFT Launchpad lowers the barriers for companies and collectors alike to get in on the Web3 revolution. For context, the Internet we鈥檝e come to know over the past quarter century is Web2. Web2 technology drove the democratization of the Internet, allowing users to contribute and interact with content. Web3 decentralizes the Internet, making transactions more secure and verifiable by using a distributed blockchain network to validate those transactions. Web3 also allows companies to take advantage of the new digital consumer asset class based on blockchain technology and smart contracts that includes NFTs, tokens, and more.

The project also revealed a compelling array of applications perfectly suited to the rising challenge of meeting customer expectations. Among the most pressing concerns for all retailers today is capturing an ever-fractured share of consumer loyalty. More than ever, engaging customers while remaining profitable increases the urgency for companies to transform the customer experience. Fortunately, the capabilities of Web3 suggest a bounty of use cases.

From loyalty programs to digital twins, NFTs can help increase brand loyalty, engagement, and revenue. Crucially, Web3 can also propel companies on their digital transformations, keeping their brands relevant even for digitally sophisticated Gen Z and Alphas as well as the generations of consumers beyond. As marketing and loyalty tools, NFTs can be issued as brand rewards, promotional or exclusive collectors鈥� items, and advertising with which younger consumers are likely to engage. Digital twins, for example, are unique ways for companies to engage, interact, and build relationships with audiences.

Digital twins are digital representations of physical objects. NFTs of digital twins, used as promotional items, invitations, passes to special events such as exclusive sales, or redemptions for discounts and physical goods, can be low-cost entries into the Web3 universe. As sales or service tools, digital twins also present excellent possibilities for improving the customer experience post-purchase. Imagine the next time your car鈥檚 engine light comes on. Instead of driving it to the repair shop, you share a digital twin that a mechanic can use to virtually investigate and diagnose the problem. You can bet if I鈥檓 getting consistently reliable service without leaving my home, I鈥檓 a repeat customer.

Internally, companies can also use NFTs as POAPs (Proof of Attendance Protocol) to boost employee engagement. Tchibo has issued POAPs to increase engagement in trainings, while 51风流has a similar program that allows in-house tech talk attendees to collect NFTs.

From marketing to commerce to service applications and more, it鈥檚 evident that Web3 has great potential to unlock key drivers of success 鈥� engagement, revenue, loyalty, and digital transformation 鈥� in the new digital landscape.

NFTs as Sustainable Swag

The NFT Launchpad holds a further benefit that speaks to changing consumer and business values. With no production, packaging, or shipping, NFTs can make a claim to sustainability that rises when coupled with the more energy efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. POS uses about as much energy as a Google search. Minting an NFT on Polygon, as the team did,鈥痷ses only , amounting to one-forty-four-thousandth of the carbon footprint required to mint an NFT on a proof-of-work (PoW) network.

How proof-of-stake so vastly outperforms proof-of-work in energy efficiency comes down to the way transactions get validated.

• Proof-of-work, used by networks like Bitcoin, involves miners solving complex mathematical problems to validate transactions and create new blocks. This process is energy intensive, requiring a substantial amount of computational power, as every miner in the network performs these computations in a race to mine the block and win the block reward.鈥疧nce the first miner finishes the computation, all other miners stop processing the block and move on to the next block of transactions.鈥疶he process repeats itself, using significant amounts of energy in the process.
• Proof-of-stake networks, on the other hand, are more energy-efficient. In PoS, validators are chosen to create new blocks based on the amount of cryptocurrency they hold and are willing to “stake” as collateral, which they lose if other validators determine the block was maliciously processed. Since only a single node in the network creates the block, no complex, energy-intensive, simultaneous processing is performed. PoS consumes significantly less energy than PoW, making it a more sustainable option for blockchain networks.

Further, NFTs have a longer lifespan than physical goods, as they can be stored, transferred, and traded without degradation in quality.

Alpha Release of NFT Management Solution by SAP

This year at 51风流Sapphire, 51风流introduced its alpha release of the non-fungible token management solution, an enterprise-ready, no-code, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for creating, managing, distributing, and claiming Web3 digital assets. Via the solution鈥檚 dashboard, companies can create NFT collections and campaigns and administer and distribute NFTs to customers. NFT collection and campaign managers can configure the experience of NFT claimants by customizing benefits linked to NFTs, adding destination links, and more.

I couldn鈥檛 be more excited to be testing the alpha release with our partners at Tchibo. I鈥檓 also excited to share a preview with you. Scan the QR code to receive a limited edition, custom NFT from the alpha release of the NFT management solution by SAP. NFTs will be distributed to the first 50 people to claim one of these cool, sustainable, custom digital artworks.

With heartfelt thanks to Tchibo, I鈥檓 looking forward to our next innovation project. Tchibo鈥檚 German slogan, 鈥淛ede Woche eine neue Welt鈥� means 鈥淓very week is a new world.鈥� It refers to the changing selection of goods, refreshed weekly, in its stores. This sentiment also rings true for business technology, and I鈥檓 excited to see what鈥檚 next for Tchibo and Web3.

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief operating officer of 51风流Industry & Customer Experience.

The platforms and lenders — such as FTX, Celsius Network LLC, BlockFi Inc. and Genesis Global Trading Inc. — may have tarnished blockchain. But crypto鈥檚 underlying technology has many more successful uses than currency speculation, including helping build transit systems and ensuring medical equipment is clean.

SAP’s Take

Blockchain allows different enterprises, organizations or group members to work together on projects. It provides digitized, verifiable information to replace cumbersome, unreliable paper documents that go back and forth among many hands.

鈥淏lockchain is used to create trust, verifiability and compliance in decentralized, cross-company processes,鈥� explains Benjamin Stoeckhert, 51风流business development manager for blockchain.

With blockchain, there is no central platform or person ensuring processes are trustworthy and reliable. Instead, blockchain creates a digital ledger that keeps track of digital information. The ledger is secure and tamper-proof because everyone in the group can see 鈥渂locks鈥� but cannot change them. Interactions — such as new entries, work completed or work approved — are stored in blocks that are linked together. Each block contains a unique digital fingerprint of the previous block, called a hash, creating an unbreakable chain.

Blockchain is ideal for digitizing documents, pictures, receipts and other types of records and transactions to track workflow, the individual assignments it takes to get the job done. Instead of swapping work orders, which could be changed or lost, everyone in the group can see the digitized documents as the work progresses.

Blockchain is often referred to as 鈥渢rustless鈥� because there is no central control to ensure things are done correctly. Since each process is transparent, trust is built in.

鈥淐reating this trustless approach or replacing the need for trust by cryptographically verifiable data: this is where blockchain can lay the foundation to really achieve a great business outcome,鈥� Stoeckhert said.

Blockchain allows parties to collaborate more effectively while saving time and money. For example, 51风流piloted the use of blockchain to support the building of HS2, a new high-speed railway that will form the backbone of Britain’s transport network. As one of the biggest construction projects in Europe, HS2 could be considered an amalgam of smaller projects, such as buildings, train stations, tracks and tunnels. The project involves hundreds of contractors, sub-contractors, suppliers, logistic companies, software vendors, regulators and designers — all of whom must know the project specifications, submit their orders and be paid, along with a host of other steps.

鈥淵ou have a very decentralized setup, and this is always good for blockchain,鈥� Stoeckhert said. 鈥淔rom a value perspective, it’s really about using these capabilities to orchestrate processes.鈥�

In medicine, 51风流and Sartorius, a global leader in manufacturing equipment for the pharmaceutical industry, used blockchain to help ensure that equipment is free from harmful microorganisms in cases where a single error would lead to drug contamination. Sterilization processes are directed and executed between medical equipment manufacturers and sterilization service providers while they are overseen by regulatory organizations and pharmaceutical companies. Blockchain helps orchestrate this process and provides verifiable data for compliance checks.

Stoeckhert sees this ability to collaborate in a decentralized way to be a major benefit for business: 鈥淭he same way you can define your internal processes and automation flows, you can now do as we call cross-company.鈥�

Contact:
Ilaina Jonas, Senior Director of Global Public Relations, SAP
+1 (646) 923-2834, ilaina.jonas@sap.com

When joined the Action Tank, one of the key work streams was to make the “green dream” a reality, accelerating the replacement of conventional fuels with renewable alternatives like green hydrogen. With customers at every step of the value chain, 51风流found itself in a unique position to lead the movement from a digital perspective.

There are numerous challenges to effecting such a monumental change in the energy sector, but one that requires a unique and digital response is tracking green hydrogen. Differentiating it from the other color grades — including blue, gray, and pink, which represent production methods with CO2e emissions or using nuclear power or fossil fuels — is critical to the success of decarbonization with green hydrogen.

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Digital Tracking for Total Transparency

The , unique digital software based on a blockchain approach, responds to the need to track green hydrogen. Designed to track commodity origin and mass balance quantities, GreenToken provides complete transparency of the source, like solar, wind, or water, as well as the way it is produced and its journey, such as pipeline, tanker, or transition into green ammonia for transportation.

A significant number of governments are working on their own green hydrogen certification programs. To account for the different production and delivery methods, blockchain is a highly reliable technology as it can provide holistic transparency on the origin of green hydrogen and the methods used for its production and transportation.

The technology in GreenToken works at every step of the value chain. A car manufacturer, for example, can have complete confidence in the green steel used to manufacture its vehicles thanks to the tokens that prove the energy from hydrogen used to produce the steel came from renewable sources.

Blockchain technology prevents fraud and creates trust; it makes the production of green hydrogen auditable, and therefore certifiable, which is particularly important in terms of pricing. Because green hydrogen is currently significantly more expensive than its blue or gray equivalents, energy buyers investing in the clean energy transition need absolute assurance and justification that their energy purchases are truly renewable.

Digital Simulation Tools

51风流software can also be used to simulate green hydrogen projects to both support decision-making and aid in planning.

Wind turbines and solar panels depend on the right weather patterns to produce energy, so the capacity to produce renewable energy is constantly fluctuating, resulting in continuous price variations. Energy data software plays a critical role in informing green hydrogen producers about fluctuations in capacity in order to allow them to manage their electrolyzers accordingly. Such tools are also essential for industrial energy customers to manage their energy finance budget.

An example of an 51风流digital simulation project involved a railway operator, where digital tools were used to calculate the capacity and filling speed requirements for a proposed hydrogen dual filling station for trucks and trains.

City planners would also find digital capabilities from 51风流valuable. 51风流has the ability to work with planning teams to understand the potential implications of transitioning the city to green hydrogen as its main source of energy for heating, lighting, and transport.

Rapid Adoption Crucial for Green Hydrogen Transition

鈥淚mplementing the digital tools to enable a successful transition to green hydrogen will not happen overnight,鈥� warns Klaus Schimmer, chief innovation architect at SAP.

The software exists — GreenToken is ready for implementation, but industry and governments are dragging their feet. Collaboration among countries and industries is key to setting certification standards.

We simply don鈥檛 have time to waste. This is not just a job for the energy industry; every large industry is impacted and needs to make resources available to join the dots. It is clear that digitalization can and will enable and accelerate the transition, but speed of adoption will be key to its success.

For more information on how 51风流helps companies record, report, and act on their sustainability goals, visit .

Christian Boos is head of Sustainability Engagement at SAP.

An NFT (non-fungible token) drop offering 15 pieces of digital art designed specifically for the event and the anniversary will be made available via digital codes during the sessions.

鈥淭hose registered for 51风流TechEd may participate in the NFT drop during the live event and collect 15 NFTs,鈥� , head of 51风流Innovation Center Potsdam, explains. His team developed and implemented the NFT drop.

Registered 51风流TechEd participants will receive access to a Web app, including a collector鈥檚 album for NFTs. 鈥淭he album appears as a timeline of SAP鈥檚 history,鈥� Krug says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of fascinating stuff to learn about our company while being introduced to NFT technologies in a gamified way.鈥�

In live keynotes, online or onsite workshops, virtual lectures, and breakout sessions, attentive participants will spot QR codes and short links in announcement windows that can be used to claim NFTs. After the event, participants can transfer the NFTs to their private digital wallets.

鈥淎nd for those who discovered and collected all 15 NFTs, an additional surprise is waiting,鈥� Krug says.

But what will participants actually be collecting?

What Are NFTs?

NFTs 鈥� non-fungible tokens 鈥� are digital assets managed by a blockchain network. Usually, they are representations of a digital or physical asset, very often artwork.

鈥淣on-fungible鈥� means the asset is unmistakable and cannot be reproduced. This process of creating the asset on the blockchain is called minting. A smart contract on a public blockchain ensures the unique value of a digital piece of art.

NFTs can be bought and sold online, often with cryptocurrencies. For this purpose, there are specific NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea and Rarible on which thousands of artists and collectors are hosted.

The NFT drop for 51风流TechEd was initiated by Juergen Mueller,听chief technology officer and听member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE,听who had听听earlier in the year as a fun private project.

鈥淚t鈥檒l be interesting to see whether NFTs gain relevance in the enterprise context,鈥� Mueller says. 鈥淎lready today, digital proof of ownership for digital or physical assets is useful for customer brand engagement with luxury goods such as jewelry or sneakers. On a broader scale, this digital proof of ownership could also be leveraged in the area of supply chain management to provide a single source of truth to all stakeholders.鈥�

Usage scenarios听such as the latter are still some time听off. Still, NFTs are being leveraged for various digital and physical assets such as videos, sports highlights, artwork, and听music.

15 Iconic Moments in 51风流History as Digital Pieces of Art

The collector鈥檚 album is a Web application running on a standard Web browser for desktop or mobile.

When participants register for the NFT drop, the album shows placeholders already pointing to the most critical milestones in 51风流history. The details become visible once the NFT has been collected via a QR code or link.

鈥淚n principle, the NFT drop is a technological elevation of the sticker album that most of us still know from childhood,鈥� Krug says. 鈥淒uplicates may be swapped, of course.”

The 15 NFTs trace SAP鈥檚 path from a five-person startup in 1972 to a multinational enterprise with 110,000 employees in 2022. The NFTs from 51风流TechEd cannot be sold or purchased.

鈥淭hese NFTs are only available at 51风流TechEd 2022, exclusively for participants,鈥� Krug stresses. 鈥淚t is a unique opportunity to win a lasting piece of 51风流history, captured artistically.鈥�

. To create your own collector鈥檚 album and gain a piece of 51风流heritage, .

Consequently, it鈥檚 no surprise that during its 鈥業nnoDay,鈥� , a globally leading manufacturer of equipment for the development and production of drugs, identified manual and cross-company processes as the most promising area for digital innovation projects.

鈥淚nnoDay provides an open platform for creating digital innovations. Innovation is part of our corporate culture and supported by an environment and leadership that encourages creativity. Scalable innovation requires integration into existing processes and systems. Therefore, 51风流Innovation Center Network is our prime partner to validate and realize this potential,鈥� said Thomas Lata, manager of IT Order to Cash at Sartorius.

Typically, processes within patient care and the healthcare system require companies to work with one another to achieve the same goal. This is especially apparent when it comes to removing harmful microorganisms on medical equipment, where a single error would lead to drug contamination. Sterilization processes are directed and executed between medical equipment manufacturers and sterilization service providers and overseen by regulatory organizations and pharmaceutical companies. In most instances, these processes are manual and paper-based, making them inefficient, unclear, and susceptible to having crucial details fall through the cracks.

With the lack of automation, transparency, and speed, sterilization processes and all the teams and companies involved needed a solution 鈥� which is when 51风流and Sartorius began working together. Based on the service, the two organizations developed a prototype that aims to replace manual practices with automated cross-company orchestrations. 51风流Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration is a blockchain-based innovation extending SAP鈥檚 no-code workflow capabilities on .

鈥淲hile many internal processes can be digitized and automated with powerful tools and platforms, cross-company processes are often still very manual and lack transparency,鈥� said Benjamin Stoeckhert, senior business development manager of Blockchain at SAP. 鈥淲ith the cross-company workflow collaboration service, we aim to solve this issue and replace manual, error-prone practices with real-time automation, boosting efficiency and compliance.鈥�

51风流Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration can be used to orchestrate and automate sterilization processes between Sartorius and other sterilization service providers. In addition to being more dynamic, the service also operates within an immutable shared blockchain ledger, enabling other market participants like pharmaceutical companies and regulators to verify the process compliance via a digital audit trail. This eliminates the need for paper documents.

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In an 51风流Sapphire session with Sartorius, Philippe Sanner and Alban Zacharia, in-house IT consultants with Sartorius, and Stoeckhert from 51风流explained that using 51风流Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration has eliminated repetitive tasks, which in turn has increased security and efficiency.

Sanner said, 鈥淭he immediate benefits we can think of are permitted by the automatization and collaboration capabilities. This saves a lot of time, and the business process experts can focus on more value-add activities. In addition, reducing paper wherever possible is also very important for Sartorius, as sustainability is one of our core values鈥�.

51风流Business Technology Platform brings many capabilities in one, unified environment, which allows to seamlessly combine 51风流Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration with 51风流Analytics Cloud. 鈥淲e have been pretty impressed with the data analytics capabilities. All information is available at the same place, and it is easy to implement personalized, user-friendly KPIs. This helps us detect risks and measure collaboration performance in real time,鈥� Sanner added.

Zacharia emphasized the importance of openness for cross-company automation: 鈥淎nother key feature of the service is that it can connect participants with 51风流and non-51风流systems. This allows scaling to all actors in the process.鈥�

鈥淲ith this prototype, we can demonstrate what a blockchain-based solution could really look like and we can offer real-time sterilization transparency for our customers,鈥� Zacharia said.

To learn more about 51风流Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration, e-mail cross-company@sap.com.

Corinna Schmidt works in Communications for 51风流New Ventures and Technologies.

The cryptocurrency industry has been in the sights of regulators for some time. The latest chapter of this is a battle over who gets to regulate it: the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The SEC says that it should be the regulator because cryptocurrencies are securities. The CFTC believes cryptocurrencies are commodities. What is clear is that it is difficult to categorize cryptocurrencies because they blur the lines between traditional categories of money, stock and commodities.

SAP鈥檚 Take

Many in the technology industry are concerned about regulation, no matter who does it.

鈥淚 think it requires thoughtful regulation, and it requires regulators who really understand the space,鈥� said Marcus Krug, head of the 51风流Innovation Center Network in Berlin and Potsdam. 鈥淏ut then, I think regulation can actually be a good thing.鈥�

There鈥檚 a lot of potential riding on the space. To most, cryptocurrency 鈥� a type of blockchain 鈥� may be viewed as a tool for speculation or an early-stage payment system.

But many believe blockchain technology has the potential to supercharge innovation. Blockchain is a virtual computer that runs on top of a network of physical computers. Its main characteristic is that it is decentralized and can be open for all to see. This transparency helps to ensure that it will operate as it was designed to. As an open system, which usually requires no authorization to participate, the technology behind cryptocurrencies could upend applications that we know, build and use today.

鈥淲e鈥檙e looking at it from a whole ecosystem perspective,鈥� Krug said. 鈥淭here is a pretty mature technology stack right now that鈥檚 powering cryptocurrencies, and it鈥檚 turning into a more and more mature infrastructure and ecosystem for decentralized applications.鈥�

The technology and ecosystem provide developers with new possibilities for building applications, which don鈥檛 require authorized intermediaries who see the transaction through its completion and providing a level of trust that the transaction will occur correctly.

This infrastructure is most popularly used for cryptocurrencies today.

鈥淔or me, it鈥檚 only a matter of time until that level of innovation is unlocked for different types of cryptocurrencies,鈥� Krug said. 鈥淧robably consumer applications, but then increasingly for the enterprise space.鈥�

That will likely generate new demand for cryptocurrencies.

鈥淭he more decentralized applications we see, the more this ecosystem will have an intrinsic value, which will be intrinsically linked to the value of the cryptocurrencies that will be used to pay for transactions and the work that’s happening in that ecosystem,鈥� Krug said. 鈥淚 think that will ultimately underpin the value that cryptocurrencies have.鈥�

Cryptocurrencies also could make payment and business simpler.

鈥淭here are a lot of benefits that could come from using stable coins in B2B transactions, because you could get rid of currency volatility, and you could start using one stable coin across the entire business spectrum of your suppliers across the globe,鈥� Krug said. 鈥淭hat comes with a lot of simplification, a lot of benefits on the business side and on the financial side for customers.鈥�

Contact:
Ilaina Jonas
Senior Director, 51风流Global PR
+1 (646) 923-2834
ilaina.jonas@sap.com

Raw materials like palm oil are often mixed with physically identical raw materials from verified sustainable and nonverified sources after the 鈥渇irst mile鈥� of the supply chain, causing the origin information to be either hidden or lost.

In a successful proof of concept in Indonesia, Unilever applied GreenToken to source more than 188,000 tons of oil palm fruit. The solution enabled Golden Agri-Resources and other suppliers from whom Unilever sources to create tokens that mirror the material flow of the palm oil throughout the supply chain and capture the unique attributes linked to the oil鈥檚 origin.

鈥淲ith GreenToken, we want to bring the same traceability and supply chain transparency to bulk raw materials that you get from scanning a bar or QR code on any consumer product,鈥� said Nitin Jain, co-founder and general manager of the GreenToken by 51风流solution, SAP. 鈥淥ur solution allows companies to tell what percentage of palm oil products they purchased from a sustainable origin and track it to the end consumer product.鈥�

鈥淭echnology has played an important role in our efforts to enhance visibility and transparency in our own palm oil supply chains,鈥� said Anita Neville, chief sustainability and communications officer, Golden Agri-Resources. 鈥淥ur participation in the GreenToken by 51风流solution pilot with 51风流and Unilever provided useful insights in how to successfully pass information between different actors in the supply chain.鈥�

The GreenToken solution helped Unilever track, verify and report in near real time the origins and journey that palm oil takes through its long and complex supply chain.

鈥淯nilever is committed to achieving a deforestation-free supply chain by 2023, and blockchain technology has the potential to help companies, like ours, track their supply chains to ensure the commodities we source respect people and the planet,鈥� said Dave Ingram, chief procurement officer, Unilever. 鈥淲e are encouraged by the promising results of our pilot with GreenToken by SAP, the latest building block in our tech-enabled approach to ensure a more traceable and transparent supply chain.鈥�

The work with GreenToken enhances Unilever鈥檚 ongoing and industry-leading efforts to gain full visibility of its supply chain.

Visit the . Follow 51风流on Twitter at .

Media Contacts:
Benjamin Nickel, +49 170 4920616, benjamin.nickel@sap.com, CET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com
Unilever Press Office, Press-Office.London@unilever.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ.听 Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP鈥檚 2021 Annual Report on Form 20-F.漏 2022 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

When it comes to legal or business transactions between independent individuals or organizations, humans have always relied on trusted third parties such as banks, governments, or clearing houses to validate transactions. But with blockchain as a decentralized and secure digital ledger, the way humans collaborate is getting restructured.

Blockchain enables participants to form a peer-to-peer network of independent organizations and individuals. Each of these participants may verify transactions as well as hold a copy of the transaction record without the need for a central controlling party. Cryptography functions ensure that information is shared in an immutable and authenticated way equally between all members of the network.

As an underlying technology for legal and business processes, blockchain has the potential to cut out intermediaries 鈥� and revolutionize the way humans do business with each other. Any industry that relies on complex cross-organizational processes could benefit from blockchain 鈥� and so could public sector and governmental institutions, even on an international level.

, business developer for Blockchain at SAP, says, 鈥淪treamlining public sector processes with blockchain can help battle or prevent fraud and corruption, for example, by providing a tamper-proof land register in countries with corruption issues.鈥� Public procurement is another area of application for blockchain, as well as tracking donations and public funds.

For enterprises, the focus during the last decades was on optimizing internal business processes by making them paperless and automating them. Blockchain is a very powerful tool to extend this process optimization to cross-organizational processes and open ecosystems.

51风流and Blockchain

Since it first came up in 2009, blockchain has run the full for emerging technologies. 51风流was among the first companies to transform the potential of blockchain into solid products and solutions.

鈥淓xpectations were extremely high,鈥� Stoeckhert explains. 鈥淭he appeal of this vision 鈥� a single source of truth for a number of equal partners in a network 鈥� was so strong that many jumped on the blockchain bandwagon without fully grasping the technology behind it.鈥�

Many assumptions about blockchain have been put into perspective since. Around 2018, the so-called 鈥渂lockchain winter,鈥� a general disillusionment with the technology, set in.

鈥淗owever, accelerated by maturing blockchain technologies as well as related standards and ecosystems, a second wave of interest and adoption is rising in the cryptocurrency and enterprise space,鈥� Stoeckhert says

鈥淪upply chain transparency is the typical application for most of the existing 51风流solutions. The blockchain-based can provide an end-to-end picture of the supply chain provenance. It enables customers in industries such as foods, pharmaceuticals or chemicals to analyze their products’ genealogies up and down stream,鈥� he adds.

鈥淐onsumers, for example, want to make sure their tuna has been caught in a sustainable way that met fair trade standards,鈥� Stoeckhert explains. 鈥淏ut labeling fraud is actually a big problem in the seafood market.鈥� 51风流has been working with Bumblebee Foods, the biggest seafood provider in the United States, on an audit trail that can be called up by QR code.

SAP.iO venture听听鈥� a 2021 finalist for the Hasso Plattner Founders鈥� Award 鈥� is a recent innovative product focused on enhancing the traceability of raw materials products across the entire supply chain through a cloud platform supported by blockchain technology.听GreenToken is running multiple pilot projects with companies in the chemicals and palm oil industry. One such pilot is with Eastman Chemical, where GreenToken is being used to provide auditable proof that Eastman鈥檚 products have been made with recycled plastic, boosting a circular economy and helping with ISCC Plus compliance. Another pilot is run by GreenToken with the palm oil supply chain in Indonesia, tracking deforestation-free palm oil from mills to one of the largest consumer product companies.

Outlook: Five Areas of Blockchain Maturity

With complex technology such as blockchain, accessibility is a constant topic. One way to lower the bar to entry could be the . Extending these tools with blockchain technology means enabling citizen developers to set up, execute, and monitor secure, cross-company processes while cutting down on IT involvement.

Further, an integration of blockchain with business process intelligence would allow users to turn their cross-company process data into insights and, ultimately, translate it into actions that help drive digital automation. 鈥淭his is an area we are currently investigating within ,鈥� Stoeckhert says. Security-wise, the adoption of those new business capabilities triggers several challenges both on the protection of cross-company process data and insights. In collaboration with 51风流Security Research, the blockchain team at 51风流Innovation Center Network explores privacy-enhancing technologies that serve as protection for shared data in a distributed ledger while enabling insights evaluation.

While today鈥檚 productive enterprise blockchain implementations are based on closed consortium blockchains, 51风流Innovation Center Network is evaluating how the unique capabilities of public blockchains can be applied to enterprise use cases, such as for embedded finance on blockchain.

Another big step forward will be the addition of . 鈥淏lockchain still has the reputation of being a kind of digital wild west, hard-to-control area,鈥� Stoeckhert says. The ability to unequivocally determine the identity of individuals or organizations will open up the next level of trust between participants, even in public blockchain networks.

鈥淎 further topic that is still in its early stages but highly relevant is the Metaverse. It consists of online spaces and virtual worlds that use technologies such as computer graphics and augmented and virtual reality to allow people to interact in a more immersive way than ever before on the Internet,鈥� Stoeckhert adds. 鈥淚t is envisioned that a decentralized digital economy consisting of multiple platforms will arise based on the Metaverse. Blockchain is evolving into the trust layer to represent and transfer ownership of value within the Metaverse.鈥�

The megatrend of blockchain remains unbroken: experts expect total spending on blockchain solutions across the globe to reach . in global blockchain investments by 2024, totaling nearly $19 billion.

Expert Questions

Could blockchain replace the Internet?

While it might replace central Internet-based business models, blockchain is far more likely to serve as an additional layer to the Internet than to actually replace it. The Internet has always been about sharing information, and blockchain will add a layer of verification of that information to create trust without the need for a middleman. Thus, blockchain and the Internet complement each other, where blockchain utilizes the Internet as an enabler.

Is blockchain a threat to the financial service sector as we know it?

On the one hand, blockchain can bring new business opportunities to banks and financial services providers. We currently see MasterCard extending its credit cards with a lot of cryptocurrency features. On the other hand, we really see decentralized finance 鈥� an umbrella term for financial services offered via decentralized ledger and therefore without the need for a central controlling party like a bank 鈥� on the rise. While this is still very early and lacks regulation, it could develop into a major threat to banking business as we know it, and banks and financial services would do well not to ignore it.

Will quantum computing render blockchain cryptography insecure?

Blockchain technology relies on modern cryptography schemes, which are threatened by quantum computers. Unless blockchain adopts new schemes, so-called post-quantum or quantum-strong cryptography, it will be vulnerable to attacks, for instance impersonating people and performing unauthorized transactions. In anticipation of quantum computers, the blockchain team at 51风流Innovation Center Network has already started prototyping quantum-strong blockchain using new cryptography. Moreover, it is interesting to know that quantum computing is expected to not only effect blockchain technology, but the security of the whole IT world 鈥� for example, every password, WiFi connection, and online banking application that depends on cryptography algorithms.

Blockchain鈥檚 appeal is easy to understand. It is a distributed ledger technology that records all transactions between multiple parties on one theoretically immutable chain. Since everyone on the chain can immediately see all the data, including all transactions, it reduces the risk of fraud. It is also easier for companies to prove compliance with regulations and head off expensive audits.

Here鈥檚 a round-up of the latest blockchain predictions, spotlighting an early proof of concept from the construction industry.

Linking Digital Transformation to Trust

reported that almost 70% of boards of directors said the effects of three crises 鈥� the pandemic, economic, and social 鈥� are accelerating digital business initiatives. While reading 骋补谤迟苍别谤鈥檚 recent , I was struck by the second trend they called 鈥渁lgorithmic trust.鈥� Drowning in vast amounts of consumer data exposure, fake news and videos, and biased artificial intelligence (AI), Gartner said that organizations are shifting from trusted central authorities to trusting algorithms. This certainly resonates with blockchain鈥檚 promise.

Gartner analysts wrote that, 鈥淎lgorithmic trust models ensure the privacy and security of data, provenance of assets, and the identities of people and things. For example, 鈥榓uthenticated provenance鈥� is a way to authenticate assets on the blockchain and ensure they鈥檙e not fake or counterfeit.鈥�

In one important caveat, these analysts also said that while blockchain can authenticate goods, it can only track the information it is given.

Every Industry Needs Trust

unveiled a long list of industries where blockchain could foster trust, including government, healthcare, logistics and shipping, and, of course, finance 鈥� where it originated. These analysts predicted that by 2022, healthcare blockchain digital identity standards will come from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, enabling universal medical data interoperability, comprehensive customer/patient data, patient “health scores,” and AI. They also saw blockchain-enabled electronic voting eventually emerging. Eight percent of jurisdictions worldwide will test systems by 2023.

In the same timeframe, IDC analysts predict that 65% of transcontinental shipping will be legislated to use blockchain that encompasses crew health information, bunker fuel sourcing, and goods origination data. By the next year, 15% of supply chain transactions will use blockchain for the provenance of ethical and sustainable practices to increase digital trust. And, by 2025, these analysts said that 10% of financial institutions will use blockchain technology for know-your-customer compliance to create a transparent, auditable record of entities.

Blockchain for Modern Construction Industry

Plagued for decades by low productivity gains due to siloed, complex supply chains, the construction industry is fertile ground for blockchain experimentation. Benjamin Stoeckhert, a business development manager for Blockchain at SAP, shared an example during the recent event. He showcased how blockchain could be used to help manage a large Western European railway construction project, bringing together the design company, along with steel suppliers and other numerous sub-contractors. The proof of concept ran on with blockchain.

鈥淔ully digitizing cross-company processes means replacing manual, error-prone approvals and payment releases with real-time transparency, boosting on-time and on-budget construction project delivery,鈥� Stoeckhert said. 鈥淲ith digital trust from streamlined workflow automation, companies can de-risk projects for greater efficiency and sustainability. For example, with a permanent record of the materials used in any building, companies could potentially reuse and not destroy them, reducing their carbon footprint.鈥�

He added that blockchain could reduce late payments 鈥� the bane of small and midsize businesses that make up the bulk of the construction industry.

Blockchain Moves from Concept to Production

Martha Bennett, vice president and principal analyst at , expected 30% of blockchain projects to make it into production 鈥� a direct result of the technology鈥檚 maturity along with pandemic-induced acceleration. Bennett saw China moving ahead fastest, having made blockchain an integral part of its national infrastructure initiative. She mentioned China鈥檚 global Blockchain Service Network, and the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure as two different, but equally bold, regional missions.

Digital Trust at the Heart of Blockchain鈥檚 Argument

There are many unknowns as business moves from COVID-19 response and recovery to future growth. We do know that corporate purpose and trust are not feel-good, squishy ideals. IDC analysts recently wrote that, 鈥渢he most favored companies right now are those that are not only secure, but also give back to their communities.鈥rust is not just about security anymore; it is also about responsibility.鈥�

As for blockchain鈥檚 role in rebuilding trust, time will tell which innovations will have the most lasting impact. The optimist in me likes to think the collective clamor for trust will grow, and a better future will happen faster than we dare hope.

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鈥淯ntil the pandemic arrived, we lived in a vast, elaborate, whirring contraption that delivered culture and commerce at spectacular speeds, with astonishing efficiency,鈥� wrote the author of a .

What happened to the great American logistics machine? It fell apart. Back in March, that COVID-19 had disrupted their supply chain. Companies that chose not to invest in their supply chain in previous years either crashed or suffered a severe hit this year due to lack of resiliency. Even did not escape unscathed.

What Went Wrong

According to the Harvard Business Review, the challenge for companies after the pandemic subsides will be to make their . Before the pandemic, manufacturers in most industries depended on suppliers and subcontractors that narrowly focused on just one area. Those specialists, in turn, usually relied on many others. The advantages of this arrangement include flexibility in what goes into the product as well as the ability to incorporate the latest technology. But relying on a single supplier somewhere deep in its network for a crucial component or material leaves manufacturers vulnerable.

In a recent discussion, Takshay Aggarwal, group lead for IBM Digital Supply Chain, and Darcy MacClaren, senior vice president of Digital Supply Chain for 51风流North America, discussed reasons for supply chain failure and talked about the IBM and 51风流partnership, which offers a truly transformative road map for supply chain excellence.

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Aggarwal spoke about logistics problems during the pandemic. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of logistics transformation going on right now,鈥� he said. 鈥淪upply chains broke down because in their efforts to save dollars, companies were single sourcing things. They didn’t have alternatives. And when there were fluctuations, they were not able to accommodate them with alternatives such as other transportation lanes.鈥�

He explained that companies were not prepared for shifts in demand, such as selling to more grocery stores rather than to restaurants. Grocery retail requires different packaging and different types of transportation. Local optimum does not mean global optimum. It is not enough to have islands of excellence in each function, so enterprises are moving toward intelligent workflows, which are more agile by nature. Aggarwal believes companies will have to look at their overall logistics strategy, from carrier network rationale to their ability to react to change.

What Needs to Change

MacClaren said data has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for most enterprises, because they store massive amounts of data in different silos.

鈥淟ack of visibility into real-time data greatly hampers a company鈥檚 predictive capabilities,鈥� she explained. 鈥淎ll our customers want to improve their ability to predict the future. And if that鈥檚 not possible, then they want to improve their response.鈥�

MacClaren believes the best way for suppliers to meet the challenge is by putting the customer at the center, then organizing to deliver the perfect experience through a multichannel, multimodal supply chain.

Both experts agreed on the two key factors behind the collapse of supply chains: lack of agility and the inability to respond in real time. One factor preventing agility is the use of disparate systems. 鈥淚f you have to pull all the information you need for analysis from different points, and then you have to do it again and again, it really slows you down,鈥� MacClaren said. 鈥淔olks just didn’t have visibility to do their job. True agility depends on the interoperability of systems.鈥�

They also agree on the critical factors for recovery. Companies should begin by figuring out what part of the process is most broken. While it is important to create a holistic journey for transformation, every supply chain has its own needs depending on the industry and the customer. In addition to applying technology to the supply chain, companies also need to facilitate cultural change. This is where the concept of intelligent workflows, rather than individual processes, plays a key role.

Win-Win for Customers

Aggarwal sees a huge opportunity for the Internet of Things (IoT) and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for demand sensing and forecasting. 鈥淚BM has always been on the cutting edge of emerging tech;,be it blockchain, AI, or IoT,鈥� he shared. 鈥淏y combining SAP鈥檚 industrial scale enterprise solutions with IBM鈥檚 new, most promising technology, we can drive that exponential value for our customers.鈥�

For MacClaren, the 51风流and IBM combination of intelligent technologies and a truly transformational road map of where to go is what can make the difference for future supply chain excellence. Now is the time to prepare, she said, so those 鈥渧ast, elaborate, whirring contraptions鈥� really do deliver culture and commerce at spectacular speeds, with astonishing efficiency, even amid a global crisis.

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Originally popular as fail-safe security for bitcoin enthusiasts, blockchain is making inroads across numerous industries, most notably as a track-and-trace tool proving the provenance of goods across vast supply chains. Blockchain-based security may be even more valuable in managing supply and demand shocks during and after the pandemic. However, as blockchain services grow and quantum computers begin to emerge, now is the time to start thinking about quantum-resistant blockchain.

鈥淥nce quantum computers can break the cryptography being used today, blockchain loses its immutability,鈥� said Cedric Hebert, senior researcher at 51风流Security Research. 鈥淲e wouldn鈥檛 be able to trust new transactions on a blockchain that wasn鈥檛 meant to resist quantum-fueled attacks. Companies will need to adopt new protocols to resist quantum attacks.鈥�

Right now, it is difficult to go backwards on a blockchain鈥檚 immutable ledger and change original information in each block of the chain. This is especially the case as blocks are added with more data. People cannot easily rewrite history on its immutable ledger because other nodes on the chain would automatically reject any changes. Also, traditional blockchains are based on asymmetric cryptography, which prevents fraudulent signing. Unfortunately, quantum computers could theoretically break the immutability of any block in the chain and falsify historical transactions.

鈥淐ompanies can use blockchain technology if they incorporate quantum-resistant encryption protocols,鈥� Hebert said. 鈥淵ou would need to freeze the blockchain at some point and migrate transactions to the new protocol.鈥�

Prepare Now for Post-Quantum Security

Even if a fraction of the predictions about blockchain come true, the security stakes are high for consumers and businesses.

Blockchain made list of top 10 strategic technology trends for 2020 and was predicted to infiltrate everything from processing insurance claims, loans, and recalls to identity management for students, patients, and citizens. By 2022, analysts said 10 percent of the world’s adult population will register for a blockchain-based self-sovereign ID, creating an expanding market of 485 million people who want to own and control their digital identities. Whether it is verifying transactions for bitcoin mining or tracking food from farm-to-table, blockchain鈥檚 security horizon depends on the unique situation.

鈥淐ompanies need to factor in the lifespan of their blockchains,鈥� said Andrey Hoursanov, lead for Quantum Security at SAP. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e using it to trace shipments from raw materials sourcing to delivery, maybe you鈥檙e looking at months, not years. In contrast, bitcoin investments typically take longer. That鈥檚 where you need to seriously consider how to protect the blockchain against quantum attacks likelier to happen further in the future.鈥�

Re-Securing Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is not necessarily just for consumers trading bitcoins. IDC analysts predicted that over 12 countries, mostly emerging economies, will begin issuing a digital currency using blockchain technologies to promote economic stability and encourage electronic commerce by 2023. As some governments begin using cryptocurrencies, Hoursanov said companies will need to begin looking at post-quantum blockchain technology for business-to-business (B2B) transactions such as procurement involving collaboration between buyers and suppliers.

Cross-border payments are another potential security risk. For example, researchers predicted that in just three years, 85 percent of global container shipping will be tracked by blockchain, with half of this volume using blockchain-enabled cross-border payments. They said that 40 percent of tier one financial institutions will use blockchain networks to process point-to-point cross-border payments, bypassing SWIFT and the correspondent or central banking infrastructure by 2024.

Embracing Cryptography Agility

It is impossible to dismiss the security implications around blockchain and quantum computers. High-profile blockchain examples tend to spotlight tracking the authenticity of exceptional transactions like rare artwork or diamonds. The truth is, blockchain could underpin many everyday activities, speeding up ownership recordkeeping, settlement payments, and even loyalty and rewards tracking for customers in many industries.

Smart cities that rely on Internet of Things (IoT) technology have tremendous potential to use blockchain as part of the infrastructure to trade energy, charge electrical vehicles, and manage smart grids. By 2023, Gartner analysts think blockchain will be scalable technically, and will support trusted private transactions with necessary data confidentiality.

Anselme Tueno, researcher and cryptography expert at 51风流Security Research, is on one of the teams exploring how to make software applications safe in a world with quantum computers.

鈥�51风流is assessing post-quantum algorithms to determine how existing 51风流applications can be made quantum-safe,鈥� Tueno said. 鈥淩eplacing broken cryptography or integrating a new one takes decades. Moreover, the security of post-quantum algorithms is not fully understood, which is why we have to prepare to replace them if they are broken. This is called cryptographic agility.鈥�

COVID-19 has taught us that we cannot wait for a crisis to reveal the worst that could happen. Forewarned of blockchain鈥檚 eventual vulnerability, companies can be armed against the risks posed by quantum computers and take full advantage of the tremendous benefits of both technologies.

Follow me: @smgaler

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The so-called 鈥渂lockchain winter鈥� of 2018, which brought the hype surrounding the technology to an end, turned out to be very much to SAP鈥檚 advantage.

Read part one of this story here.

鈥淲e were able to spend 2019 consolidating our collective expertise and focusing much more closely on specific use cases in the enterprise environment,鈥� Torsten Zube, former head of the 51风流Innovation Center Network and current head of 51风流Cloud Platform Business Services, says. 鈥淲e saw that more and more businesses were looking seriously at blockchain and gaining a better understanding of the technology.鈥�

鈥淭he challenge for us is to ask the right questions at an early stage,鈥� says Thomas Uhde, head of the blockchain team at the 51风流Innovation Center Network in Potsdam. 鈥淚t often happens that customers come to us with a business problem and assume that the solution must lie in blockchain. We then have to look together at whether the problem we want to solve is in fact a case for blockchain or not.鈥�

One such case emerged from the need to verify the authenticity of returned drug products.

鈥淐ounterfeit, stolen, and contaminated pharmaceuticals products are a massive issue all over the world,鈥� says Oliver Nuernberg, chief product owner for 51风流Life Sciences. 鈥淲hich is why the United States introduced an act in 2013 requiring pharmaceuticals companies that trade on the U.S. market to perform strict checks on returned products prior to resale. A pharmaceuticals customer of ours, Merck Sharp and Dohme, wanted to invest in blockchain, and the blockchain use case was a perfect fit for them in this context.鈥�

The result was .

鈥淓very pharmaceutical product package delivered to the United States is registered on our solution鈥檚 blockchain,鈥� explains Nuernberg. 鈥淐ustomers no longer have to authenticate a returned product themselves; instead, they simply use an app that accesses the blockchain.鈥�

Alongside verification, traceability is one of the major benefits that when properly used, blockchain technology can deliver. The , a blockchain extension of the 51风流Logistics Business Network, provides an end-to-end picture of the supply chain in industries such as foods and pharmaceuticals.

鈥淚ncreasingly, people want to know where their food comes from,鈥� says Product Owner Christoph Huber. 鈥淲e proposed a cloud solution to customers, but they were uncomfortable with the idea that a company — in this case, 51风流— would be managing the database on which all the companies involved in production stored their information. They wanted the decentralized approach that blockchain allows.鈥�

This kind of scenario obviously requires all the partners to agree on the policies governing a blockchain network. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have to be a large customer with your own IT department to use blockchain,鈥� Uhde says.

That is demonstrated by the GS1 blockchain project for exchanging EUR-pallets. In a six-month pilot project, 30 parties, ranging from a market gardener with 20 employees to DHL and Beiersdorf,听 were able to form and participate in a network.

However, as Uhde points out, 鈥渨hile the vision of all companies worldwide coming together in a single blockchain network is a nice one, it鈥檚 totally unrealistic. There will always be at least one business partner who doesn鈥檛 participate, which is what makes interoperability so important. It would be wrong for enterprise blockchain networks to end up simply creating bigger silos.鈥�

Blockchain was originally intended to function as a kind of database to which all the participants in a network have equal access. But certain business scenarios, such as third-party business transactions, expressly require that all partners do not have access to every detail of the supply chain.

鈥淲hat we have developed with customers instead is a kind of digital notary service on the blockchain, in which the focus is on validating data rather than exchanging it,鈥� Uhde explains.

Flexible digital collaboration tailored to specific use cases will be an important area of application for blockchain in the future.

Uhde describes the goal as a flexible collaboration network: 鈥淥nce it鈥檚 set up, the connection to business partners can be used for a wide range of scenarios, some containing blockchain, others not. Some partners will exchange non-critical data via blockchain, for automation scenarios, for example. For others, notarization will be sufficient.鈥�

Tokenization is another trend that the blockchain experts at 51风流are exploring.

鈥淓ssentially, tokenization refers to the exchange of assets other than money,鈥� Zube explains. 鈥淐arbon trading is a good example. In the future, products could be priced in euros or dollars, and in carbon values too. We鈥檇 pay in the normal way, but we鈥檇 have to have the corresponding carbon credits available, earned, for example, by planting trees.鈥�

The carbon value of a product can be calculated using product master data, transaction data, and so on — including the CO₂ emissions connected with the raw materials, transportation routes, machinery, and factory facilities involved in production.

鈥淭hat requires data on the CO₂ impact to be exchanged across all organizations in retail and supply chains,” Uhde says. “Blockchain technology can do precisely that.鈥�

And according to Zube, 鈥淭o use the terminology of Gartner hype cycles, we haven鈥檛 yet reached the 鈥楶lateau of Productivity,’ but we鈥檙e well on the way.鈥�

Why would 51风流鈥� or any provider for that matter 鈥� promise to support existing software for such long time frames, at a time when technology is continuously evolving at an accelerating pace?

It is a matter of one underlying truth:听 of companies are more comfortable with learning from their peers that are digital transformers and disrupters before diving into their own innovation efforts. This mindset is only natural as听听CEOs still feel tremendous pressure to deliver a successful digital transformation strategy. The stakes could not be higher for every digital initiative.

Question of Strategy and Timing, Not Momentum

The approach to technology adoption today is very different than what it was 10 to five years ago, or even one. Now more than ever, it is a deeply deliberated business decision based on more than just knowing which software to choose. It is about timing, readiness, and operational need.

Take, for example, intelligent , 51风流S/4HANA. To date, approximately 14,000 51风流customers have already chosen 51风流S/4HANA to be their future digital core, and thousands are actively implementing it. The ERP adoption rate is undoubtedly experiencing significant momentum. But for some companies, planning for the new technology presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reconsider their business models, operational strategy, organizational setup, processes, and resources to build a better, stronger, and more resilient business.

Going through a decision-making process like this takes considerable time, thought, and discussion. This is not the moment to rush in and drive a massive change to the IT landscape, let alone a technical upgrade. Businesses should define financial drivers, innovate new business models, refine operational processes, and investigate new capabilities such as automation, all based on the advanced capabilities of 51风流S/4HANA. More importantly, their workforce and leaders must be trained to use these digital advancements in ways that deliver a customer experience that is more engaging and profitable, not traumatic and lackluster.

With the right maintenance commitment on behalf of the solution provider, businesses are granted the room to accurately predict and genuinely reshape their future. They can determine whether pockets of legacy customization are holding them back from transforming. Furthermore, decision-makers can consider the best staged approach to drive the shift, especially if a broad array of business units and market units are scattered worldwide. Additionally, new technology co-innovations and partnerships with digital giants such as Microsoft,听, and听Amazon Web Services听can be thoughtfully examined.

Then, when the time is right, businesses can swoop in and transform themselves with solutions that best meet their needs and support their ultimate visions. All pieces of their envisaged business model and operational puzzle are set, the workforce is ready and committed, and successful adoption is within sight.

Inspired Transformation That is Indisputably Flexible and Supported

Customers and their user groups have a strong desire for starting their transformation journey without delay. Their feedback is clear: The time to move is now. But for their transformation process, they also want to take advantage of the best engineering practices and innovation processes and capture advanced capabilities that deliver a new level of organizational momentum 鈥� based on clarity, choice, and flexibility.

In this respect, maintenance commitments can be powerful aspects of how businesses evolve, especially with artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics, and . And while 20 years may seem like many lifetimes in terms of technology innovation, extensions like the听one we recently announced听can become the lifeline businesses need to transform on their terms, within their timeline, and in their way.

Stay in the conversation by following Services and Support from 51风流on ,听, , and听.

Jens Bernotat is the global vice president of Strategy and Ecosystem for Customer Solution Support and Innovation at 51风流SE.

鈥淎t a very early point in time, people were already surrounding blockchain with a sort of blaze of glory,鈥� says Torsten Zube, former head of 51风流Innovation Center Network and current head of 51风流Cloud Platform Business Services.

Read part two of this story here.

鈥淭he technology鈥檚 decentralized approach allows for any number of equal partners to use the information stored in the network as a digital single source of truth 鈥� there was a strong appeal to that vision. To some, this promised to become the actual digital revolution everyone had been waiting for. Obviously, the technology couldn鈥檛 satisfy such inflated expectations.鈥�

Bitcoin in particular fired up the hype around blockchain. Beginning in 2009, the cryptocurrency promised to revolutionize banking and the way we deal with money.

鈥淓ven then, it was evident that a lot of people who had jumped the bandwagon didn鈥檛 understand bitcoin, or the technology behind it,鈥� Zube says. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 differentiate between the two them.鈥�

Just a few years before the blockchain hype started, 51风流had launched the as a sort of research and development laboratory for the software giant. The network was designed to identify early trends in technology and evaluate their potential for use in enterprise software. Blockchain first appeared on the radar in 2016.

Many assumptions about blockchain have been put into perspective by now, but the most important pain point that the technology promised to resolve 鈥� the lack of a single source of reliable data 鈥� still exists.

鈥淚t鈥檚 such an effort for companies to connect their own systems to each other and exchange and harmonize always the same data,鈥� Zube says.

鈥淚n part, enterprise software depicts business processes that stem from the 19th century, including sometimes 10 or more partners,鈥� he explains. 鈥淒ata is being transferred from one system to another when in theory, it could be parked one time for good on the blockchain with no need for further validation or integration. At that time, this still seemed a realistic option.鈥�

In spite of, or perhaps because of the hype, many at 51风流were at first skeptical about the technology. 鈥淲ithin SAP, we had to do a lot of persuading: Why and in which cases should we invest in blockchain? How is it working and what is the benefit for companies?鈥� Zube shares.

In the meantime, the hype around blockchain continued to grow. As a result, 51风流customers were requesting the new technology. 鈥淭his helped a great deal to position blockchain within SAP,鈥� he says.

In October 2017, a dedicated blockchain team was founded at the 51风流Innovation Center location in Potsdam. Thomas Uhde heads the team. He recalls: 鈥淔rom the start, we were working with actual customers on actual business problems. This enabled us to assess what the technology can do, despite the hype around it.鈥�

This also meant collecting experience about when blockchain is the right technological solution to a problem 鈥� and . According to Zube, 鈥淲e had to communicate within 51风流and to our customers time and again: Blockchain is not always the right fit.鈥�

A first milestone was achieved in 2017, when the city of Bolzano in South Tyrol, supported by SAP, started using blockchain for its digital municipal administration. 鈥淭his project combined the most important benefits that blockchain promised at the time: simplification of processes, reduction of efforts, and improved data security,鈥� Uhde explains.

However, success stories such as this one were not as frequent as blockchain promoters would have liked. Increasingly, it was understood in and outside of 51风流that blockchain was not a magic wand to simplify cross-system data exchange overnight. It was going to take a long time before the technology was widely adopted. The pedestal that some in IT had put blockchain on started to crumble.

Toward the end of 2018 blockchain entered the next phase in the . From the peak of inflated expectations things sank into the trough of disillusionment 鈥� there was even talk of a 鈥�.鈥�

鈥淚t was clear from the beginning that blockchain, just like any other trend, was sooner or later going to lose steam,鈥� Zube says. 鈥淲e weren鈥檛 fazed by this, however.鈥� 51风流had just launched via 51风流Cloud Platform. For the first time, 51风流customers are able to use blockchain technology as a module in their solutions without having to start from scratch.

鈥淲e knew that those who really got blockchain would hold on to it,鈥� Zube says. 鈥淓xactly because the hype around the technology subsided, we were looking toward 2019 with great optimism. The blockchain winter would come, and it would be good.鈥�

Continue to part two here.

At the same time, the workforce is changing 鈥� and rapidly. We not only have the most diverse workforce regarding gender and ethnicity, but in physical and neuro diversity, age, skills, and work-life situations, as well as the most complex set of work agreements, with an unprecedented mix of full-time, part-time, and gig work.

Finding talent 鈥斕齱hether they are听full-time, part-time, or听a听contractor 鈥� requires the verification of several credentials, including employment history, skills and competencies, education certificates, and more. Despite advancements in technology, a single career profile does not exist and the current methods of exchanging and verifying this data can be costly, self-reported, unverified, and slow.

We听need more efficiency and we have the tools听to make it happen.听Today,听51风流joins the , a nonprofit, vendor-neutral organization听formed to reinvent how career records are shared globally so that individuals and businesses can compete in the future of work.

Blockchain-Powered Platform to Verify Career Credentials

will build a blockchain-powered solution, the Velocity Network, that provides trusted, immutable, and verified student, employee, and candidate data. The aim is to achieve two main goals: to give power to individuals to take ownership of their career credentials and to develop a reliable way for organizations to ensure they have the right talent in the right roles 鈥� seamlessly and cost-effectively.

Building this platform on a blockchain will help ensure it is trusted, private, and effortless. Individuals can have control over how their data is shared and used 鈥� an important distinction, considering career credentials are some of the most valuable assets when it comes to making a living and building a fulfilling career. This data听needs to be protected and secure at all times.

A blockchain-based solution also benefits organizations by helping ensure information is accurate,听verified, secure,听and compliant. Results are reducing hiring risks, increasing productivity, and better experiences for everyone.

Joining Industry Leaders to听Deliver an听Exceptional Experience

51风流joins other industry leaders to make the Velocity Network a reality. Given the pace of technology and business, we feel strongly that a vendor-neutral, open-source platform is the best way to build a broad, inclusive, innovative, and vibrant ecosystem of applications and use cases. One of the core pillars of the 51风流SuccessFactors Human Experience Management (HXM) Suite is embracing an open ecosystem, so that customers have access to the broadest set of innovations to help them achieve their goals.

HXM is a new category that builds on the best of human capital management (HCM) and extends it to create truly dynamic, engaging, employee-centered experiences. Our commitment is to deliver the best experiences for all workers 鈥� candidates, employees, contingent workers, recruiters, HR managers, and so on 鈥� in order to drive greater productivity, higher employee satisfaction, and ultimately, stronger business results.

At the end of the day, the Velocity Network is furthering our mission. Just as our ID and credit cards are stored in our wallets or on our phones, our professional credentials should be easy to locate and verify. A faster, easier experience for candidates, employees, recruiters, and HR managers results in听higher engagement and听more time spent on the business outcomes that matter.

The future of work is adaptable, flexible, and data-driven. Together, 51风流and The Velocity Network Foundation will equip organizations with the technology they need to excel.

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Meg Bear is senior vice president of Products for 51风流SuccessFactors.

Accept That Blockchain Is In Your Future

Despite the detractors, companies are getting serious about blockchain. In the latest survey, more than 50 percent of companies expected blockchain to drive digital transformation over the next three to five years. Similarly, reported that 60 percent of surveyed CIOs expect some kind of blockchain deployment in the next three years. As for industries that have already deployed blockchain or plan to deploy it in the next 12 months, Gartner found that 鈥渇inancial services leads the way (18 percent), followed by services (17 percent) and transportation (16 percent).鈥� Blockchain appealed to professionals in these industries who are in search of ways to use it in areas like recordkeeping and data management.

At , analysts saw companies replacing the irrational exuberance of the mid-last-decade with 鈥減ragmatic and realistic approaches to blockchain projects.鈥� While fewer in number, blockchain projects are 鈥渟erious enterprise endeavors, rather than speculative proofs of concept.鈥� Notably, these analysts saw interoperability taking center stage.听People on the chain want to understand what kind of interactivity is possible between participants and their data. As a result, Forrester predicted an increased focus on integration with existing systems.

Look to the Supply Chain for Opportunities

Supply chain remains the odds-on favorite when it comes to betting on blockchain鈥檚 ability to deliver business value. That is because behind every pallet of shipped products is a bevy of intertwined organizations including manufacturers, distributors, logistics providers, and retailers. Historically, companies have relied on error-prone, cumbersome paper-based recordkeeping to track pallets. In this at 51风流TechEd, Jose Prados, development expert at SAP, shared an example of how companies can combine blockchain data from pallets across the supply chain with business data for new insights using from SAP, , and .

鈥淜nowing how many pallets were sent isn鈥檛 nearly enough information for modern, global businesses,鈥� said Prados. 鈥淏lockchain data provides everyone with real-time, automatic visibility into what pallets were delivered when and where. Companies can use this data to trigger more accurate and efficient payments to partners, including suppliers or logistics providers. They could also create a supplier dashboard to fine-tune sourcing strategies based on manufacturers鈥� recalls or payment habits, and they can calculate new KPIs and build new predictive models with more accurate data for more informed planning. This is applicable to any industry.鈥�

predicted that 85 percent of global container shipping will be tracked by blockchain; 50 percent of this transport will use blockchain-enabled cross-border payments by 2023. These analysts expected enterprises to invest 鈥渘early $11 billion in blockchain services (consulting, implementation, maintenance, and support), spending over one-third of that investment on managed services鈥� during the same timeframe.

Unlocking Blockchain鈥檚 Promised Trust

Some industry watchers have high hopes for blockchain鈥檚 fundamental ability to foster greater trust and transparency for business. IDC analysts think blockchain 鈥渟hows promise to provide the glue for some digital trust issues.鈥� By 2023, Gartner predicts blockchain 鈥渨ill be scalable technically and will support trusted private transactions with the necessary data confidentiality.鈥� IDC analysts looked ahead to 2024 when they said more than 75 percent of regulated companies will adopt blockchain in support of explainable artificial intelligence (AI).

Unlimited Possibilities for Blockchain-Driven Value

Blockchain could be well-suited anywhere data needs to be shared securely between multiple participants. 骋补谤迟苍别谤鈥檚 list of potential opportunities included claims processing for automobile, agriculture, travel, life and health insurance, and product recalls. Gartner also included smart cities on its list of use cases where blockchain and IoT-based data supported 鈥減eer-to-peer energy trading, administration of electric vehicle charging, smart grid management and control of wastewater systems.鈥�

Blockchain obviously has a role to play in identity management as well as payment and settlement 鈥� think royalty payments, stock settlements, interbank payments, and commercial lending. By 2022, IDC says that 25 percent of digital rights will be processed on blockchains managed by distributors and content creators, brokering trust and transparency to prevent free consumption and illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing.

In a perfect world, blockchain will help fight identity fraud and counterfeit goods. It could help us quickly figure out where contaminated food originated, right down to the row of crops. It will not happen overnight, but one way or another, blockchain will be part of the future.

Follow me: @smgaler

We can鈥檛 all be superheroes, but fashion lets us become someone else, even if only a little bit. As our clothes and accessories demonstrate, fashion is visual and fun. But it鈥檚 also the interface between us and our world, protecting us while broadcasting who we are and who we want to be.

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In the not-too-distant future, fashion will enhance much more than our appearance. It will monitor our physical and mental well-being and signal our needs in the moment. It will be more assistive, thinking and acting to help us improve our performance in a given environment. It will be more adaptive, made from advanced materials that change their appearance and function according to our requirements and desires. The extreme possibilities could genuinely make us more than we are 鈥� an exciting prospect for those of us who secretly dream of acquiring superpowers!

Before we can reach this future, though, the fashion industry has some urgent catching up to do. Its current business听model听doesn鈥檛听work for听today鈥檚 consumers, who听are rebelling against fashion鈥檚听tradition of pushing听whatever comes off the runway at听them.听Instead, consumers want听what听their favorite social media influencers are wearing. And they want听it fast, with a personalized fit.听Today鈥檚 consumers are also increasingly passionate about sustainability even as the fashion industry听confronts a听waste problem of global proportions.

Facing听the urgent need to modernize its business model and solve its sustainability problem without sacrificing growth, an industry not known for leading the way in technology adoption is suddenly on the verge of听a massive technology makeover.

Advanced Technologies Are the Industry鈥檚 New Look

In its explorations of new technologies, the fashion industry is right on trend. Like virtually every other industry, it is looking at the potential of artificial intelligence (AI), centralized platforms, blockchain, and virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) 鈥� and it likes what it sees.

For example, manufacturers can鈥檛 afford to waste time and money creating products that听increasingly rebellious听consumers don鈥檛 want. Enter predictive AI, which uses image recognition and machine learning to break products down into collections of data points,听such as听color, pattern, material, and design detail,听so manufacturers can听quickly听听and develop new offerings听fast.

Similarly, producing only enough product to听听allows manufacturers to reduce waste while appealing to customers鈥櫶齞esire for customization, whether that means a tailored fit, a unique color combination, or nonstandard details.听Robots and 3D printers听are making it possible to manufacture anything from shirts to shoes on demand.

The industry is also trying on听VR听and听AR听for size, with mirrors and glasses that let听customers听cycle through multiple items and entire outfits in听shops听without removing their own clothes, as well as听Web听sites that let people听鈥渢ry on鈥澨齝lothing and accessories in their own homes before buying.

And the latest generation of听, with their built-in speakers, video-recording ability, and integration with phones and digital assistants, are both useful and,听well, we won鈥檛 go so far as to call them听fashionable, but they鈥檙e not听hideous.

Improving Accuracy in the Supply Chain

Companies are also starting to explore how听technology can help them tackle their sourcing issues, from choosing vendors听that听can meet both delivery schedules and ethical employment standards to using materials produced more safely, delivered more efficiently, and tracked more closely to prevent loss and theft. Using听specialized听, blockchain, RFID, and other听next-generation听听technology can help the听industry听track products and their component parts.

Digital transparency into the supply chain improves inventory accuracy and availability, prevents counterfeiting, and听鈥撎齣n a nod to consumers鈥櫶齣ncreased interest in the broader societal impact of their purchasing decisions听鈥� creates听greater supply chain transparency. Some fashion companies are already giving听their customers听听about听every step of a product鈥檚 journey,听from the farm where wool for a sweater was sheared to the factory that spun it into yarn听to the actual truck that delivered it to the warehouse or store.

Technology Makes Circularity Stylish in the Fashion Industry

Growth in the fashion industry generates a continuous stream of appealing new products 鈥� and, unfortunately, an equally continuous stream of听.听If the industry doesn鈥檛 change its practices, it will create an听听148 million tons of waste听by 2030, or 38.5 pounds听(17.5 kilograms)听of waste for every person on the planet.听Yet this crisis could also听create a runway for听new opportunities to satisfy customer demand for both new looks and new ways of doing business.

Technology makes it easier for fashion to join the circular economy, which is based on reusing materials and听ending听waste. This can take multiple forms:

• To make听, fashion manufacturers听need听to source, track, and verify the content of recaptured materials and design products that听take advantage of the materials鈥櫶齜est qualities.
• To make听听蹿谤辞尘听,听manufacturers听need听to听identify听and听source used clothing, ensure that it can be recycled or upcycled, and design products that incorporate it.
• 罢辞听听barely听worn or unworn clothes, brands听need听to track both items and past customers in order to identify and recapture previously sold or never sold items for resale.
• Brands can also participate in听subscription/sharing models, in which consumers听听听before听sending it back听for something different.

In听all of听these cases, success requires manufacturers to听听(what they are, what they鈥檙e made of, where听they听come from, how听they听can be reused) so they can track the components, maximize their value, and continue to reuse them with minimal waste.

Fashion: the New Softwear

Farther down the听runway,听we may find ourselves thinking听of clothing听as听less听like听hardware 鈥� something听to听buy once, wear until it鈥檚 worn out or听obsolete, and then dispose of听鈥� and more听like听software, something that听changes听to meet our needs听(and whims)听and that we use for longer periods of time.听Think of shoes with听听that snap onto replaceable soles or听听with the wearer.

We鈥檙e already seeing the emergence of听听containing sensors that provide haptic feedback and offer assistive support to improve performance and prevent injury. The new听, for example, contain sensors that pair with a companion app to adjust the shoe鈥檚 fit and advise the wearer on how to improve the way their foot hits the ground.

This personalization trend has plenty of听extra听room in the听seams.听In the future, we听may听be able to听alter our clothing with听鈥渋n-app purchases鈥澨齛nd听鈥渦pgrades鈥澨齮hat keep an item fresh, interesting, and useful for longer while still generating revenue for the maker.

The concept of clothing听itself听will also听stretch.听Instead of selling clothes and accessories, a manufacturer might sell designs and materials for customers to create and personalize with 3D printers in the store or at home.

Meanwhile, fabrics will adapt to meet new听technology-powered听demands.听We鈥檒l see more materials developed to last longer,听, recycle more easily, and/or听听Researchers are developing听smart fabric听that听actually has听soft, flexible circuits embedded in the fibers. Smart fabric听might literally let us update our clothing digitally, with manufacturers听pushing听out听听or the ability to听听in real time.

Or imagine being the first fashion retailer to offer clothing made of fabric that can fend off bacteria, foil surveillance, track data about the wearer鈥檚 actions, and generate energy from the wearer鈥檚 motions. How is that anything other than a superhero suit?

If the fashion industry wants to听thrive听and grow, it听must听shift听from continuous consumption to responsible consumerism听while听continuing听to satisfy the unquenchable human desire for something new. It听might be the industry鈥檚 most epic challenge. But听by听using听technology,听fashion听can听transform听itself听鈥� and maybe听even听help听save the world.

Download the executive brief: .

Dan Wellers is the Digital Futures global lead and a senior analyst at 51风流Insights research center.
Fawn Fitter is a freelance writer specializing in business and technology.

Top image via Getty Images. Photographer kobrin_photo (image #1004052580).