TQ Blockchain Preshow

Many associate cryptocurrency think of it as only applicable to money the financial

services industry and we'll watch it is relevant to these areas it really is so much more than
that it has applications in almost every industry the term multi party systems does a better
job capturing the essence of how the technology is used in healing increasingly use us
hear that term multiparty systems going forward the idea is this whenever organizations
interact there's always some data being shared between the traditional model all the
organizations keep their versions of the data separate a lot of time and energy goes into
making sure they agree with each other but in a multiparty systems the organizations
agree to share just one version of the data that they can trust absolutely so the real value
here is that everyone sees the same cognitive Ledger and is working off the same data it
provides transparency in how the data has changed over time if one organization has a
modified version of the truth it'll be easy for the other organizations to see that that is not
what they are seeing the benefits are to you to your clients as a consumer you could also
be issue with their products and services you buy are coming from reputable sources with
reputable processes as a person and will allow us to take back ownership of our own
personal data and thus to only share specific information to those who need it it'll help
our clients with new business models that unlock the trapped value embedded inefficient
maintenance and reconciliation of data between our clients and their customers and
partners and suppliers this all leads to increased innovation cruise productivity quality and
security and notably provides increased transparency and trust in the data DHL is the
great example DHL is a logistics leader in life science and healthcare we helped to use
blockchain to create a track and trade system that captures the unique identity of each
unit of a pharmaceutical shipment as it moves through the supply chain the serial number
of each item is securely captured and recorded at the point of origin and information
added to the distributed Ledger for companies that people want the supply chain use that
identifier to validate the items and move on through the supply chain the value of this is it
streamlines the process and decrease costs but also provides real value in terms of trust in
the product providing counterfeit medicine mentoring the supply chain which is a massive
benefit to society in the world and then moving on to other benefits from the world's
multi party systems bring about social responsibility to more sustainable approach for the
world meaning less waste and supply chains the ultimate producers potentially get more
profit for their goods as a result too you can ensure the product you're consuming or
buying was produced from a reputable source using tracked radical processes once
adopted widespread we'll be able to tell if the sustainable brands are really more
environmentally and socially beneficial now how come they get startup launched can
become complicated and extremely complex and this is where we commit the opportunity
lies for Accenture we're leading the way on multi party systems no other company the
world has the same level of experience talent and services necessary to reinvent and
reimagine the way businesses in society works this is where one exception comes into play
we were like all the parts of the centre to deliver blockchain and multi party system
solutions to our clients our industry expertise first and foremost our strategy to help
answer this is the right solution for our client through creating the right consumer
experiences and then managing the operations and building the technology along the way
and of course extensive ecosystem partnerships to help our clients build out these
capabilities as well not only are we experience with all of these elements of launching we
also have thought leadership tools and resources to help our clients we have over 50
innovation centers and labs doing launching and multi party system work for over 270
global right now net numbers continuously growing we have over 160 pending and
granted patents in this area and we just sit down six blockchain industry international
reports so we're helping shape this area will not change the multi party systems a big
focus for Accenture and it's all around us even if you're all eccentric nothing to do with
blockchain today it will affect you as a person you should all know what it is and be able to
have a conversation about it and understand the value of it as you go through the rest of
this course I'm going to think about ways you can apply what you're learning to your daily
work what conversation should you be having with your team your leads your clients
about blockchain you learn from the client stories what ideas do you have for blockchain
and multi party systems to build a better world.

Blockchain: Executive Briefing

OK wait a second before we even begin let me clear up a couple of misunderstandings this
will be a short introduction to blockchain what it means how it works and most
importantly why anybody cares what are the practical use cases for this what are the
situations and problems where blockchain can actually help now usually when I do these
executive briefings I like to talk about the subject as if you're completely new to it but
here I'm going to take a slightly different approach and that doesn't mean I expect you to
understand blockchain already in fact I hope you know nothing about it if you could say to
me Simon until 30 seconds ago I'd never even seen the word that would be great that
would make my life easier but I find most people have heard something about blockchain
but often not directly meaning they didn't set out to learn about it it has just crossed their
radar once or twice or a dozen times it keeps coming up you might have seen blockchain
mentioned in a business article here or a new story there you've heard somebody talk
about it in a meeting or seen it as a bullet point in a corporate strategy document but
nobody's taking the time to properly explain it and what that can lead to is an awareness
about it that I'll describe as yeah I've heard about blockchain it's something to do with so
I'll hear comments like I don't fully understand what blockchain does but it's something to
do with financial transactions or isn't blockchain a way of making electronic contracts or
I've read that blockchain has something to do with Bitcoin I'm just not sure what the
difference is and I could go on it's not that any of these are completely wrong but they
aren't limited and incomplete understandings they're all missing the big picture and a few
of these ideas can even hold you back from recognizing what else this can be useful for so
even if you are coming to this completely fresh which is great I'm going to talk about
common misunderstandings because even if you don't have any preconceptions a
blockchain I guarantee you some of the people you work with too so in the next few
minutes we're going to cover up the most important ideas we'll get past a lot of the hype
around blockchain I'll go over the terminology the most common words and phrases that
are associated with this not just what blockchain means but also terms like distributed
Ledger smart contracts and consensus we'll see several of the emerging blockchain
platforms and we'll talk about what that even means and we'll explore multiple real-world
business scenarios to make it easier for you to recognize where blockchain might be useful
for you or your organization OK now show the thing I'm Simon allardice and welcome to
the executive briefing on blockchain blockchain is a fairly new technology it's a little over
10 years old and everything we're going to talk about here Published in late 2008 by toshi
nakamoto will come back to that name in a couple of minutes but this is only 8 pages long
you can download it from the web it's freely available and you don't need to go and find it
and you probably shouldn't unless you actually enjoy heavily mathematical computing
white papers this is full of formulas and code examples and phrases like rearranging to
avoid summing the infinite tale of the distribution and I'll admit this isn't my idea of light
bedtime reading but there are a couple of things I'd like to point out about this first this
paper is entitled to Bitcoin a peer-to-peer electronic cash system and yes I said Bitcoin not
blockchain and the word blockchain the way we use it now as a single word does not
appear in this original paper but make no mistake this is about blockchain the word block
appears everywhere in this document as does change and I will talk about what those
words mean here in just a moment but what this paper was describing with all the
underlying technology the software that had to be defined and formalized and
implemented to make Bitcoin the cryptocurrency possible and all that underlying
technology described here is what we now call blockchain you might then ask so is
blockchain all about Bitcoin no absolutely not let me say that again no blockchain is not
just about Bitcoin blockchain is not only about cryptocurrency it's not only for finance and
these days most businesses interested in blockchain are using it for reasons that have
nothing to do with Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency just to be clear I don't need you to
have experience with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin we're going to talk about them a little
bit here because of this history but it's not going to be our main focus but this Bitcoin
paper was where the technology we now call blockchain began but as has happened with
so many technologies it might have been invented to fix one specific problem and then
people figured out it could be applied to a whole bunch of different problems sidewalk for
an example of an equivalent situation a technology now use very differently from the way
it was first intended here's one you already know so I just showed the Bitcoin white paper
this is a different white paper from 1989 and it's entitled information management a
proposal and the abstract says this is about the management of general information about
accelerators and experiments at CERN it discusses the problems of loss of information
about complex evolving systems and derives a solution based on a distributed hypertext
system and yes this is the proposal by Tim berners Lee that describes what would become
the World Wide Web the point is that the original purpose of the World Wide Web the
reason it exists in the first place was as a way for some scientists at the CERN labs in
Switzerland to share information about their experiments I don't think I need to point out
we found a few more uses for the web than just this and in the same way yes blockchain
was invented to support Bitcoin but it's now been used and applied in a lot of different
situations and because it's such a new technology we are still realizing more and more
places where it can be useful now the fact that blockchain was developed for the Bitcoin
project we have that history that association between blockchain and cryptocurrencies
can lead to a few of those misunderstandings because a lot of reporting about
cryptocurrency is sensationalist nearly 2000% some experts say there's no limit to how
high this could go cryptocurrency prices have plunged almost 85% in the last 48 hours
after a frenzied sell off around the world and if most of what you've heard about
blockchain was related to cryptocurrency you'll have seen stories about money laundering
dubious get rich quick teams there's been bankruptcies and thefts and even
disappearances so you might even wonder is this what blockchains are about do I even
want to get involved I mean is anyone actually doing serious work with blockchain and yes
they are and there's an ever increasing amount of infrastructure and Commercial Services
starting to appear support organizations working with blockchain for example IBM now
offer a blockchain platform as does Microsoft as does Amazon these companies aren't
doing this because they've seen a few get rich quick schemes and want to jump on board
they're heavily investing in blockchain because they see the demand for it and the future
of it but we can admit that yes blockchain did not follow some slow conventional normal
slightly boring adoption into the business world it's been an unconventional story I
mentioned this original white paper was written by satoshi nakamoto we don't actually
know who that is you see after publishing this paper a person with this name contributed
to the original Bitcoin mailing list for a couple of years and then went silent and no one's
been able to figure out if there actually is or perhaps was a satoshi nakamoto or if that
was a pseudonym for someone or even a pseudonym for several people there's been a lot
of conjecture and many different names suggested but right now we don't know we don't
actually need satoshi nakamoto for all this to work the implementation of blockchain is
completely public and open source but yes still a little odd but despite all this there is
incredible value here but OK we've been going for a few minutes we've talked about some
history and some misunderstandings but we haven't yet hit what does this do what
problems does this solve and I believe if you want to understand the nature of blockchain
not just recite a definition of it but actually get the point it's very helpful to take a step
back way back and I'm going to say not just forget about blockchain for a moment but
forget about computers for a moment and let's talk about how we might have done things
200 years ago for hundreds of years we have used ledgers to keep track of accounts and
transactions and this Ledger is from the 1800s but I could go to an office supply store
today and be able to find a paper Ledger that's basically identical and the great for
creating a permanent record not just describing how things are right now but all the
history it went to this point so to track it bank account you'd begin with writing down an
initial balance but from that point on you wouldn't ever go back and change that first
entry you just keep adding new entries to the Ledger for each new debit or new credit so
the Ledger supports this full history so we can use these to track transactions the date the
amount what are the parties involved transaction could be something trivial like the
purchase of a dozen eggs but it could be the purchase of an acre of land or a house or a
company alleged could also represent the details of a loan and outstanding money owed it
could be a continual record of who owns certain assets or keep track of physical
possessions being lent from one person to another but very often the details of any
transaction aren't just recorded in one physical Ledger but in multiple so if my company
decides to buy a horse and cart from your company that's something I'd record in my
Ledger as a purchase and expense and something you'd record in your Ledger as a sale but
there are issues with physical ledgers that can be damaged could be lost they could be
filled out incorrectly someone could write an entry in the wrong place or miscalculate a
balance or forget to write an entry at all and there could be intentional deception
someone might change an old entry after the fact but perhaps the biggest problem is that
if we're dealing with transactions involving different parties the ledgers can be
inconsistent so if I've borrowed $100 from Alice I could say look at my Ledger it shows I
paid everything off and Alice then says look at my Ledger it has no record of a payment in
January you still owe me what do we do maybe my records are correct maybe hers are
and in discrepancy is a real problem if we don't have some way to settle it so what's
happened historically is that the more important the transaction becomes the more likely
you are to involve a trusted and hopefully neutral third party to mitigate risk so instead of
a direct transaction between two parties where there is often a benefit for one to deceive
the other we both agree we'll use this third party we agree they are the single source of
truth about the details of this transaction and any money or documents will flow through
them rather than directly between the buyer and the seller and this is also
institutionalized in commerce that it's part of the landscape it's very easy for us to go
numb to all the different intermediaries involved in even our personal day-to-day
transactions just think of the banks and the credit card companies involved in any
purchase we make or say the escrow company in a real estate transaction and of course
all these third parties need to get paid to be that middleman that intermediary which as a
cost and often a delay to every transaction but here's a thought exercise if much of the
need for an intermediary comes from the basic problem that to avoid the disagreement
now or later to avoid fraud something needs to act as that single authoritative source of
truth but in a transaction it doesn't make sense for me to just trust in you and the version
of events you've written in your letter and it also doesn't make sense for you to just
blindly trust in me and my version of events so imagine what if there was only one Ledger
and you have one but whatever I write in my Ledger magically appears in yours and
whatever you write in your Ledger magically appears in mine if either you or I write a new
transaction in new entry in this magical Ledger once it appears it's set neither of us can
delete it or change it now for the moment let's postpone the how of this and just focus on
what could you do if that was true what could you do if we could have a shared
incorruptible secure and authoritative Ledger where the Ledger becomes the source of
truth and that because it includes history it can be the authoritative record of proof that
yes you actually do own the asset that you say you are and that yes I have the asset I say I
have when we could decide on a transaction that exchanges one for the other we could
both could immediately have an identical copy of the transaction in that Ledger and it
couldn't be changed well then we wouldn't need a middleman everything becomes
cheaper and quicker if there's no inherent cost to a transaction we can make more
transactions whether small or large or whatever and this magical Ledger doesn't just have
to be between two people we could make it between three or 10 or 1000 we could make
it completely public and The thing is we don't have to trust each individual party we don't
have to like them or even know them as long as we can all trust the Ledger as that source
of truth and this is what blockchain does and you'll hear the term distributed Ledger or
shared Ledger the entire point of this technology is to create a distributed digital Ledger a
shared network of information that is duplicated across many different computers and
when any person in this adds a new entry a new transaction to this Ledger it is
automatically copied across all the different participants what we call the different nodes
in the system and with the chain that used for Bitcoin for example and has all the
transactions for that currency there are actually 10s of thousands of different notes
different computers that have a copy of the same data and what makes blockchain very
different from a conventional database is that this distributed Ledger isn't owned by just
one personal organization there is no single administrator nobody is in charge because the
data isn't only on one specific computer in one server room in one company it is
decentralized so any changes to it aren't done in one master location and then blast it out
to all the subordinate locations no there is no master there is no subordinates everyone is
a peer with new transactions can be added at any point in this network and there will be
automatically copied peer-to-peer now there are some applications of blockchain I don't
need to be public and where we might even want some extra layer of control we'll get to
that little later but it's this ability of blockchain to act as a single shared source of truth it
works incredibly well for financial transactions but can also make it useful for so much
more but first let's get a little bit deeper into how blockchain can actually do this earlier I
said that in that original white paper the word blockchain doesn't appear at least not as
one single word but the word block does so first what is a block well I'm gonna have to
answer that twice because the first time it's going to sound kind of vague a block is the
name we use here for a small amount of data told you it was gonna sound kind of vague
OK what do I mean a small amount of data how much data is a small amount and what is
that data OK so if we were dealing with financial transactions where each individual
transaction is small it could just be the details of when how much who's it from who's too
well in a physical legend we can't get away from the fact that our transactions are
grouped page by page we add new transactions one after the other someone page fills up
we go to the next page well when using blockchain for financial transactions like with
Bitcoin we can think of a block as kind of the equivalent of a page that first it is simply a
way to batch together some recent transactions each block can hold the details of several
hundred to a couple of 1000 transactions and when new transactions happen they get
batched together into this block and this block sure because the blockchain grows more
and more appended to it just added on the act and they're always added in sequence I
can't add a new block in the middle I can't rearrange the existing blocks I can't just delete
an earlier block or edit it the term sometimes used is that blockchain is append only and
back to that idea of this physical Ledger where you would never change the details of a
bank account by just flicking back through some old completed pages finding an old entry
and just changing it no you just keep adding new entries new debits and credits to the
Ledger you append onto what is already there even in the situation where you found out
that there was an earlier incorrect transaction you don't delete it you would add a new
transaction that would reverse the old one that's the way that you have to do a Ledger
and this is also what applies here building out this as a chain allows you to have both that
state of how everything is now and all the history that led to this point but you might ask if
this blockchain is actually shared across multiple computers potentially even thousands of
computers and they all have a copy of the same data all the blocks actually stop someone
taking one of those earlier blocks and just changing it you know just faking a new
transaction or deleting one or changing the details of an old one good question let's talk
about that now at this point you might think OK if a block is a way to store a small amount
of data and store it sequentially one block after the other well is that really such a big deal
I mean couldn't we already do that so yes there is a bit more to this idea of a block in
blockchain every block also uses what's called a cryptographic hash and this isn't
something unique to blockchain cryptographic hashing or just hashing is a common task in
programming particularly with anything to do with security or encryption now if you're
already comfortable with the purposes and benefits of hashing feel free to skip ahead a
couple of minutes if not just give me a moment to explain why this is so important think of
the word hash as we might use it in cooking like hash Browns or corned beef hash hash is
where you take some ingredients chop them up into little bits mix it all up and get the
result that's kind of what we're doing here but with data we take the raw ingredients our
data and chop it up into little pieces we perform various the calculations on those
different pieces and then combine them together to end up with a small value a result
that often looks very meaningless and random but was actually based on that original data
let me take you through an intentionally simplified example for data I'm going to use just
one basic sentence I'll then take each individual letter of this and give it a number based
on where that is in the alphabet like a is 1B is 2 to get a row of numbers from this I'll
choose to take every second number and Add all those numbers to give me 218 I'll then
take the remaining numbers and Add all those up to give me 245 I'll then decide to take
both of those numbers just reverse them in place and then why not let's take these and
multiply them together 440104 and then I'll decide to convert every second number of
this back to a letter so this form becomes AD this one becomes an A and so on so my
result here is 4D0A0D now if it seems like I just made-up a bunch of unpredictable and
almost meaningless calculations yes I just made that all up a real hash calculations are
more involved but the principle is that whatever result I get from doing this is entirely
dependent on that original data and that this result it's repeatable meaning if I took the
same data that same sentence and go through the same process a year from now I would
still get exactly the same result but if I made even a tiny change to the original data and go
through the same process I would get a totally different result so if I change just one letter
of the sentence the eye of Bitcoin to an A well now the numbers are different and that
means the result of adding them all up is different so the result of reversing them is
different the result of multiplying them is different and instead of that first result of
4T0A0D we get an entirely dissimilar 6E0D and when you hash the data you will get a
result that's smaller and often much much smaller than the original data instead of one
sentence I could have hashed the contents of an entire 500 page document and ended up
with a hash value that might look something like this now it is important to know that
hashing is not encryption and what I mean by that is with encryption it's the idea where
we can encrypt some data to get a scrambled and unreadable result but we could later
decrypt it together original data back here that is not what we're doing the question is not
reversible and it's not meant to be so if all I had is the hash value there's no way for me to
convert or decrypt it back to the original data an analogy I've made before is that to take a
hash value and expect to get the original data back from and is about as useful as
beginning with a plate of corned beef hash and expect to turn it back into a cow and a bag
of potatoes you can't you've lost too much in the hashing process so then why why do we
do this if we can't get the original data back well because the point of the hash is that it
can act as a short signature or fingerprint of the data it becomes an additional way to
verify that the original data hasn't been tampered with because when you're storing data
in multiple places or sending it from place to place as long as you also have a copy of the
hash value you could then find out if that data has been tampered with anyway so six
months later or a year from now five years from now you could take that data you could
hash it again and then you compare the new hash value against the old hash value and if
they match you're good if they don't you know the data has been tampered with since you
originally saved it and that's why hashing is so useful in computing and in blockchain this is
done at multiple levels each transaction in that block will also have its own hash based on
the data in just that transaction not only that but each block also has its own hash for the
block itself and as every new block is created one of the pieces of data it stores is actually
a copy of the hash value of the previous block in the chain now what this all means is that
in a blockchain if you try and change one tiny piece of earlier data like trying to change
one transaction and any of those earlier existing blocks within the hash for that
transaction will be different which means the hash for that entire block no longer validates
which means that next block which had a copy of that hash no longer matches which then
has a domino effect on all subsequent blocks because none of them match and this
cryptographic hashing is the mechanism that makes blockchain very resistant to
tampering even when we share it between dozens hundreds or thousands of different
computers even though blockchain began as the underlying technology behind Bitcoin
doesn't have to be about explicit financial transactions a block can contain other kinds of
data be used for other reasons and the idea of the Ledger is still valid here because they
weren't always just about money ledgers were also used to track any kind of important
records like births and marriages and deaths they might be a record of the ownership of
property without specifying an actual value for it and you could even use a physical Ledger
to write down a recipe or directions or draw a blueprint but before we get into an
example let's quickly revisit and refine our use of the word blockchain because we could
use it to refer to the concept the idea this general technology area as in learning about
blockchain but we could also mean one specific implementation of this we could talk
about the blockchain used for Bitcoin which is completely different from the blockchain
used for ethereum which is different from the blockchain you might implement to manage
your company's supply chain so to be clear there isn't just one blockchain we can have
entirely independent blockchains created for different purposes and each of those
blockchains it is still a distributed Ledger that could be shared across hundreds or
thousands of computers or perhaps just shared with just a few depending on what that
particular blockchain is intended for when we talk about different blockchain you'll often
hear them described as either public or private people might say Bitcoin uses a public
blockchain so it doesn't restrict any access it doesn't require you to authenticate with the
user ID and the password and the ones in charge anyone can get to the Bitcoin blockchain
but when considering a blockchain for business use and having this massively available
public access isn't often a requirement you probably don't need or want it publicly
accessible you don't want just anybody able to add new transactions to your blockchain so
in many business situations public or private isn't the most important question it's more
about whether that blockchain should be permissioned or permissionless now a
permission less blockchain like the Bitcoin blockchain is set up that way by design not to
restrict access you don't need to be granted permission to use the Bitcoin blockchain but
in business use it is more common to have a permissioned blockchain where it is still a
distributed Ledger but you can also control access to it by providing a unique identity for
each allowed user so for corporate and business applications one of the attractions is the
ability to implement different levels of permission so some users might be allowed to just
read from the blockchain but not append to it or even just read from specific sections of
the blockchain where others could append new data and having permissioned blockchains
is what can open this up to a lot more applications for example healthcare blockchain
could be used as a way to manage medical records as a shared Ledger that acts as that
authoritative single source of truth and shared between individuals medical professionals
hospitals insurance companies but with tight permissions to control what parts of your
data that say a medical professional can see and even how long they would be allowed to
see it and still maintain compliance with privacy and regulatory rules about medical data
because right now medical records are often stored in multiple disparate systems and the
problems with that can range from something mundane like insurance being denied
because of an out of date patient address that one place has to different medical
professionals having conflicting or ambiguous medical histories for a patient different lists
of medications or different lists of allergies so there's a lot of potential for improving
communication and even patient outcome by making sure everyone has trustable up-to-
date information beyond healthcare people are also looking at blockchain as a way to
manage digital assets like documents or media blockchain could act as that trusted record
of when something was created who it was created by who it was purchased by there's
also a lot of work being done on using blockchain to vastly streamline digital rights and
royalties now that's a couple of high level scenarios but let's dive a little deeper into one
specific example something that's becoming almost a classic example of blockchain for
business is how it can be used for supply chain management and it's a useful example
even if it's something you're not personally interested in because it's a total shift away
from that cryptocurrency financial use of blockchain now supply chain management is by
nature just to continual challenge in logistics because there can be so many different
participants you have providers of raw materials there's factories suppliers transportation
warehousing and storage inventory management insurance has customs if you're crossing
borders to distributors wholesalers retailers even the end customer and to track and
manage the progress of materials supplies components and products through any supply
chain is immensely challenging you're often trying to orchestrate many different
companies and trying to get their internal systems to interact with each other and even
trying to track just one item if that's even possible might require having to authenticate
and query across multiple independent computer systems just to try and figure out where
something is with blockchain instead of trying to integrate all the various computer
systems and databases with each other we can flip this we can just have that shared
digital Ledger automatically replicated across all participants where each participant can
keep their own systems but also have the ability to add entries to this Ledger and as things
move through the system you can be updated by multiple parties with the current state of
that item and everyone who needs to see it can see it and this doesn't just lead to better
tracking of items but that itself leads to better data about inventory better predictions
about resources and how those resources will be needed and where and when and
everything is time stamped so there's better identification of any inefficiencies or choke
points in the system and it would also vastly simplify the addition of any new participants
into the supply chain to bring in new players or replace existing ones they don't have to
figure out how to integrate their systems with half a dozen other vendors they just need
to be able to talk to the blockchain and beyond tracking the data there's also ways that
blockchain can help automate a lot of business processes and that uses something called
smart contracts time to talk about that one aspect of blockchain that's rapidly growing in
popularity is smart contracts instead of just storing raw data on a blockchain we could
instead store a contract an actual agreement now this doesn't just mean a digitized PDF it
means a mini computer program a predefined list of rules through very specifically control
the business transaction and what makes a smart contract smart is that once on the
blockchain it will be executed automatically based on those rules for example the smart
contract might define that as soon as person a transfers an amount to person B the
system will then automatically transfer the record of ownership of some asset or it could
define rules based on a specific date or specific time or on the value of an asset and The
thing is as smart contracts are written in code so they require no intermediary to make
them happen they're fully automatic and like anything else in the blockchain once it's
placed there it can't be changed so smart contracts are a future that's already built into
many of the blockchain platforms and services you can now find and it's time we talked a
little bit about those earlier I'm briefly showed a few of the commercial blockchain
services from IBM Amazon Microsoft and I've intentionally picked those as names you
would recognize even if you've never set foot in the blockchain world but as you step
more into this some of the other names you'll see for blockchain platforms and services
will include ethereum hyperledger fabric and corda and while they all take a slightly
different approach they're all trying to provide and simplify all that underlying blockchain
technology so that you or your organization your teams your developers could build your
own applications on top of that infrastructure so they take care of that distributed Ledger
technology but they don't define what you're going to do with it now this course is far too
short to get into any kind of worthwhile comparison between blockchain services so I will
leave that as an exercise of the viewer but let me wrap this up I was recently asked Simon
do you think we'll still be talking about blockchain in five or ten years and the question
was asked in the sense of did I think this was all a lot of hype and snake oil something that
would just end up on the technological scrap heap and no we may talk about blockchain
less in the future but not because it goes away more because it becomes part of the
technology landscape takes something like TCPIP you use this every day you're using it
right now but most people don't think about it they don't have to it's just how the Internet
works and I think blockchain is going to be the same way it is going to be a vital part of
more and more systems developed over the next few years because despite all the hype
around things like cryptocurrencies the reality is that having a shared distributed Ledger
that's tamper evident with a high level of trust this is incredibly useful and we've only
begun to realize all the different situations this could be applied so yes blockchain is
important and it's not going away I hope you enjoyed this executive briefing I'll see you
next time

TQ Blockchain Aftershow

squatching it's been a hot topic for a while now but what does Accenture really have to do
with it it's probably a lot more than you think don't worry we're going to cover it all today
on this edition of the TQ after show hey Paul thanks for coming back to the TQ HQ
although I have to say we're in a little bit of a different location today than we usually are
yeah that that's right Sir we are in a different environment here as we all practice our
physical distancing but what a great time for TQ as well to look at how we can learn and
use new techniques and new tools like TQ to increase our own knowledge yeah we are
definitely testing our technology today but we have a great show that I'm looking forward
to we're gonna talk all about black shading Yep and multi party systems let's not forget
about that wait a second hold on Paul I thought this show was about blockchain did I
prepare wrong you'll be fine we'll explain it all and for the whole audience by the end of
this every understand blockchain and why it's important to think about multi party
systems as well OK Paul so we're going to talk about blockchain and multiparty systems
well I'm sure everyone is very excited to learn about these topics because I know I am and
I can't wait to hear how Accenture is really helping our clients with it and who better to
have with us today to tell us a little bit more about these topics than our two global multi
party systems and black extremely day treat and Melanie cottman they're gonna tell us all
about what we're doing for our clients and the value that we're bringing so Dave and
Melanie thanks so much for joining us today great to be here as well yeah it's great to be
here thanks for having us well thanks again for joining us Melanie and Dave and since
none of us are in the studio today we're going to have to get a little creative in how we
have some other special guests join us but don't worry we'll have some guests pop in
throughout the show and really it wouldn't be an after show if we didn't also have a game
so we have one of those coming up too but before we get to all of that let's just dig in
here so Paul let's start with you I said blockchain you said multiparty systems tell me what
you're talking about there I'm sorry I wasn't listening I was working on my own little
blockchain here but you know you asked about multi party systems and you know we
actually have the expert on multi party systems here with Dave tree so let's get Dave
maybe to talk to us a little bit about multi party systems and Dave maybe we can start a
little bit about blockchain and blockchain is really just like you know Bitcoin and
cryptocurrency isn't it yeah it's it's obviously where all of this was born this whole wave of
innovation you know started in 2008 with satoshi's paper and and Bitcoin really bringing
together a whole new set of innovative technologies in a new way but we've moved on
from there tremendously so really over the past five years six years that now that the
corporate and enterprise and government use of blockchain has has come into the fore
and we've been innovating alongside the terminology really doesn't work for us anymore
that there are those that are out there that are the zealots and say you know blockchain is
only the Bitcoin blockchain structure there's we've been using the term generically to talk
about all of this notion of how do multiple parties multiple corporates business entities
work together in a new way our old world our assumption was you had your data I had
mine we had we couldn't possibly share access to it I couldn't let you behind my firewall
and I couldn't get behind yours and so we did all sorts of amazing things with API's and to
make our current message based business model faster now there's a new now there's a
choice there's a there's a different option for us to be able to have multiple parties
confidently share access to business logic to data to have a shared view of the world and
that's what this whole space is is a variety of different architectural patterns of technology
ways to share access to business logic data and a shared view of the world no I think that's
a great way to think about it too is blockchain was really it arose as a technology the
technology supporting Bitcoin and it's one of many you know technology patterns and
such you can use that we call distributed ledgers different ways to you know make the
technology work but the real implication is for our clients you know companies in the
world is multi party systems like multiple parties to transact and Internet interact and do
converse more effectively and efficiently and that's why we like the term multi party
systems OK so unlike cloud and AI that we've talked about on prior shows it seems like
blockchain is a fairly new technology the other technologies we've talked about so far
have been around for a while but Melanie I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit
more about the history of blockchain and why it's so new sure as we think about the
digital businesses that have been winning in the last few years they're the companies that
have acquired the most data and they use it wherever they can to grow their data but in
the next wave of digital businesses the winning companies will be the ones that really
create trust between their relationships and their customers and their partners multiparty
systems provides a new way to build that trust by sharing access to business logic and
data and making the business process even simpler and easier we've been streamlining
clients processes with ARPA analytics and AI for years but primarily in the four walls of
their company with multi party systems creating standards and streamlining the business
process across the entire ecosystem and value chain allowing us to get to better data and
more trust going forward OK so this is starting to make sense and I think about when we
had the AI show and we talked so much about how data was at the foundation and it
seems once again that's the case here as our friend shale Jane would say we all have to be
data citizens and we also talked about how trust is the currency of the future and it seems
like with multi party systems that's even more true if you think about how much trust
there has to be to share the data that they and that goes between the two systems so
thanks Melanie that was really interesting and Dave since this is a fairly new technology
but it seems like as usual right like Accenture is already out there leading in the front but
why do you think this topic is resonating so much right now with our clients now you
couldn't be any more important right now and through this technology we're able to
simplify the way that businesses and organizations exchange data verify data and
exchange value between them so unlocking track value is what this is all about and it's
that's all about what our clients need certainly in this moment OK that sounds really
interesting but I mean what do you mean by trapped value yeah so trapped value is is is
going going and looking at an end to end flow and recognizing that there are aspects of it
where you know we've we maybe we've tapped out with respect to how much we could
automate or streamline and really we have the opportunity to completely rethink the
business flow itself and find whole new pockets of value that are trapped in the system a
great example is this work that we're doing right now in North America with what's called
the risk stream collaborative this is a this is a consortium of all of the big name insurance
players that you would recognize in North America chances are your homeowners
insurance car insurance are with all of the companies that are that are part of of this
consortium it was formed by the risk institutes which is the North America uh policy
lobbying and education body of the insurance industry itself we're looking at auto
insurance and so let's take the simplest of use cases which is where we started with them
you and I smashed our cars together today it's a series of phone calls and faxes and emails
as I notify my insurance company you notify yours the sure insurance companies check
the police report that back and forths and the emailing and the reconciliation of that data
is called the first the two processes that are involved are the the first notice of loss which
proved that you know there was actually an accident and the proof of insurance where we
both insured and those initial processes to evaluate the accident are in on an industry
wide basis $2 billion worth of energy and effort that spent in that simple exchange of
messaging and reconciling data that $2 billion pool of tracked value that we can unlock by
having each of those parties use blockchain use multi party systems to be able to share
access and see the same information if I know that I see what you see we don't have to
reconcile I don't have to send that fax we don't have to e-mail back and forth we have a
shared view of truth we're able to take out enormous chunks of trapped value in the
system and save a lot of money unfortunately for you and me let's put a pick up point
there that that David was talking about which is the the track value that you said it very
important thing there Dave which is you know multiple parties reconciling data and
information that's like the the the the big flag to look at for when you can use multi party
systems and technologies launching that example of restream collaborative was a great
one think about the supply chain process where many companies in the supply chain
handing off the same information from one to another story in their own databases
reconciling and having people process you know redundantly these are the the red flags
and signals for where multiparty systems could apply and that trap value existed a lot of
different industries a lot of different processes that we see out there OK so it really seems
that this is more of a means to the end than the end itself blockchain and multi party
systems is really it's almost changing the boundaries as we think about it between
organizations and I think as we talked about in our previous shows around AI and cloud
this is much more than a technology shift I mean this is a huge cultural shift companies
need to really think about their data and then really think about trust again it comes back
to trust and how can they share that data with other companies it's really an interesting
and transformational kind of space so Paul I'm wondering you know how does the work
that we're doing in Accenture kind of care to our competitors in the blockchain and multi
party systems thinking about blockchain multi party systems in different ways but again
you come back to the track value and the way we need to look at this as you were just
saying which is different so so you need you know all the capabilities that Accenture has to
really crack the code in solving problems it's really about the one extent your view of the
solution you need our strategy capability and our industry and functional decide to
understand it in a given industry in a given area where is that track value how do you
unlock it how can we apply this is in a different way what would the business case and
business value be of doing it then we need the technology to build the solutions to build
these new multi party systems across sometimes from one client sometimes across
multiple clients we need operations to run this for our clients which is a huge opportunity
that melody team are all are already on top of we need Accenture interactive because this
changes the experience for workers in a company for you know consumers and citizens
you know that that are working with the technologies you need every part of what we do
to make this work which is why I think we're uniquely positioned and take these ideas into
the C suites of our clients to help really the catalyse the change and I think you know good
example this day maybe to talk about is is the KDT I maybe you can explain what that is
and why that's such a good example of the value we can bring as we apply a multi party
systems for clients yeah you're probably right it is a it's a great example so KDDI stands for
known traveler digital identity this is a partnership that we have with the World Economic
Forum and in its pilot form we're working with the countries of Canada and the
Netherlands KLM airlines Air Canada Toronto Montreal airport and and schippel airport
and the the travel experience notwithstanding the fact that we're not traveling in this
moment we will be traveling again at some point quickly and the whole travel industry
you know is set to grow and and when you look at the ability for us to to have control and
manage your own data and share it with service providers and authorities in in a new and
different way digital identities at the heart of what multiparty systems is all about and so
the use case here is I'm sitting anyone of us is sitting home alone we're on the couch and
we book that ticket in this case to fly from let's say Toronto to to Amsterdam being able to
send all of the credentials in an attested form ahead of time to the immigration officers on
the on the other side of the journey so that they can prevent and preclear your your
eligibility and and to to come enter the country that all can be done ahead of time right
today when I walk up to the to the border control agent and show them my passport I am
in effect surprising them in that moment they didn't expect me coming they hadn't
precleared anything we should do away with all of that and and So what will be the the
vision of the future what we've already started to implement and the and the platform
that we've built is to be able to send those credentials ahead of time and then when you
arrive at the other end of the journey to simply be able with the use of your face and facial
recognition technology walk through the immigration you know immigration process and
onward to your journey that's really just the beginning though when you think about all of
the different pieces of your own information that you want to you want to share with
service providers and authorities on the end end travel journey right from cars to hotels to
if you have to go to the you know hospital or health system access to financial services
being able to pick and choose with whom do you want to share what for how long and
actually have the ability to revoke their rights to see it is all hugely impactful and is deeply
strategic right our strategy organizations at the heart of how will this play out it has
serious operating model possibilities and implications that are consulting organizations all
over it has you know you know obvious operate capabilities that will need to be involved
to be able to maintain these digital identity systems and so you know across the board
deep technology deeply strategic conversations big operational opportunities in in the
long term the whole future of how self managed identity is going to evolve and change
our business flows it's going to be hugely impactful and it's going to involve every facet of
our firm and I just want to emphasize again what you said they're they're they're they
they talked about multiple countries multiple airlines multiple airport airports each
country multiple agencies involved that's multiparty systems and why you know this you
know the underlying technology we're talking about this new view around multiparty
systems can be dramatic efficiency simplification and amount that traffic like you were
talking about earlier yeah so it certainly doesn't seem like it's A1 dimensional topic as we
think about it and this concept of 1 accenture it really does are kind so money I have to
believe that our practice in blockchain and multiparty systems is pretty impressive can you
tell us a little bit more about the capabilities that our practice can bring to our clients
Poland Dave already mentioned that it takes everything that center has kind of under one
umbrella really create a multi party transformation and our new blockchain practice has
some really impressive stats we've got over 50 innovation centers and labs we've got
more than 270 clients engaged globally on blockchain initiatives we have 60 business
centric assets available and over 166 patents both pending and granted so we're not only
helping our clients think through transformation initiatives of multi party systems we're
actually at the forefront of this research and capabilities in the emerging technology all of
these are important around three core domains that we see common in most of our
projects and that includes financial infrastructure supply chain and digital identity so the
identity you heard about in the airline example as well as kind of rethinking how money
moves around the world and supply chains and their entire transparency so in order to do
this we need a number of partnerships and we've been strong in our partnerships this
space including companies like hyperledger and R3 and digital assets specifically in the
blockchain space as well as being part of these ecosystems and consortiums that are
coming together so things like Moby and force field that are actually transforming industry
by industry as well as working with the universities on applied the leading edge of this
technology that's a great lead in to melody to the ecosystem overall does a great start and
you know the other ecosystem partners that we always talk about become very important
players in this as well So what we you know to talk about our bags Microsoft Amazon
Alibaba and Google and there are major players in here and some of the important work
we're doing is with companies like Microsoft they're they're you know they're the fabric
that they've created to enable these types of systems are our IPS intelligent platform
services partners become important here too looking at how SAP could enable multi party
systems in the supply chain through the software they have along with our other IP
intelligent platform vendors and many others involved in in many different ways and then
you mentioned your last holding which is a great example of us being very proactive
working with the early startup in this space and they're actually a company we've invested
in and partnered with early through Accenture ventures along with other blockchain
companies so we've been using that full range of capabilities we have and the full range of
of ecosystem relationships we have to really accelerate our position in multi party systems
and blockchain yeah that makes sense Paul and I think I'm finally starting to get it so we
clearly have a strong point of view and we've got a lot of skills and capabilities in this area
but as you mentioned once again similar with other technologies we have to partner really
closely with our ecosystem partners and that makes sense we've talked a little bit about
what it is and what we're doing in this space and Dave you even touch a little bit about the
value that this can bring to our clients but maybe you could expand on that a little bit
more and give us some examples of how this brings value to our clients through multi
party systems we are redefining the fundamental nature of business ecosystems and
business flows we are changing the nature and making incredible innovations around the
basis by which we share data between institutions between corporations between people
even between things and and and business flows and so not having to need copies of data
scattered amongst and in redundant form and as constant reconciliation we're able to
generate serious value but we're we're completely re architecting business flows in many
instances and that's hard work incredibly valuable work that will benefit businesses
corporates and enterprises but it also has a massive potential that to to help those that
are in most need of help in our world those that don't have access to any form of
recognized digital identity those that are excluded from financial services or or the
educate you know the world of education business and it's these marginalized people that
we've had a huge focus on as we've entered and thought through the potential of
multiparty systems and what it could do this video that we are about to watch talks about
how through this technology we could drive and encourage and support the behaviors
that we'd like to see at the beginning of supply chains by rethinking the connect the
connectivity to the consumers at the end of those supply chains to better drive social
value wow Dave that is a very powerful video I really loved it I mean this idea of how
blockchain and multi party systems is this virtual thread connecting us all throughout the
global ecosystem is really powerful and the idea that it actually brings kind of gets rid of
that anonymity and really brings to life all the different parts of the supply chain and really
helps empower even more people to participate in the ethics economy I mean they would
you say you agree with that viewpoint we do it it's been a struggle to be able to change
behaviors at the beginning of supply chains because the values never gotten back to them
right all the money that comes out of the end of the supply chain if there's just too many
hops for it to make it all the way back to the beginning and so we're asking people who
are trying to oftentimes just trying to survive to change behaviors and and do you know
not cut down rainforests and and you know and and and it's it's a struggle so our ability to
work with partners like MasterCard mercy corps ever Ledger AWS the the the people who
with us could drive real difference and be able to dramatically change the economic
condition and motivations of people at the beginning of supply chains through the use of
digital identity the the movement of value enabled by multi party systems all is incredibly
powerful and we're excited to watch it grow this is a whole space that we've been
dedicating a ton of time and attention to we were founding founding members of a public
partner private partnership called ID 2020 dedicated to bringing effective digital identity
to to the more than 1.2 billion people in this world who have none we've been working
with partners like the World Bank and the World Economic Forum and and others all the
drive this incredibly important space as we've created a vastly more and more digital
world we can't leave behind those people who don't have any access to it we have to be
able to bring others in enable them with identify identity enable them to have that digital
access financial access educational access and this is incredibly important to us and and
and to our partners yeah Dave I love what you just said there that was perfect and I also
love that the red streak video just shows how they're connected everything is and you just
made some great points about how this isn't just about businesses and efficiency and
doing things better through multi party systems there's real value to individuals as we
think about things that matter even more to us in the digital economy we're moving into
the digital world are our own privacy integrity an information preserving you know what
you know what makes us individuals blockchain and mark multi party systems have a huge
role to play in that that's why it's been so excited to see work that Dave and team have
been leading yes founding members of ID 2020 which is focused on digital identity as Dave
said and other organizations that are looking at this as a way to improve social inclusion in
the rights of individuals in the digital world that we're moving into Paul yeah I completely
agree and once again I'm reminded of one of our past shows when we talked about
responsible AI and how we really had a responsibility there and it seems that it's very
similar as we talk about blockchain and multiparty systems it's a common theme I love
everything you guys have said so far but now it's time we actually shift gears a little bit and
we're going to play a little game and it's called free consulting because I think that's what
we like to do right we like to give free consulting that's part of our business model on its
own but we could do a little bit of it we'll do a little now yeah maybe just for TQ OK so
here's how it works we've got a few people with different scenarios they're going to tell us
their story and then you guys have to tell us if multi party systems would help that
situation and solve their problem a little bit of free consulting for each of them if you will
OK so Dave this first one is for you take a look so I went to the store but I forgot my wallet
and of course I didn't have any credit cards or cash on could multiparty systems have
helped multi party systems and blockchain probably couldn't help in this particular
scenario but there are there are some interesting innovations that are out there right that
the there are multiple banks working on face to pay and the use of biometrics and and so
it's it's a bit of a stretch but unless you have that pre pre-existing relationship with that
store and you wanted to share your identity information with them and you had an
account with them you you could almost get there but but right you know but right off the
bat probably not their first immediate answer but it but it is an interesting longer term use
case again if you had pre arranged relationship with the store and had they you you were
comfortable with them storing a biometric of you and then using that biometric to link to
an account I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to label this when I maybe at some point OK
Dave that was pretty good I think that I think that was that was definitely worth some free
consulting OK Melanie next one is up for you take a look at this I remember last year there
were this big issue with Roman lettuce and an E coli outbreak could blockchain have
helped with that well this one is a strong yes since you thought of the the red string video
and the multiple parties have information that all had access to that to that supply saying
you could actually start to understand where the source of your food came from so
instead of pulling all the food off of shelves because we didn't know which farmer went to
which distributor together which warehouse and ended up on the shelf of which retailer
which which consumer bought if we actually had that data and transparency across it we
could make a very targeted decision to say here is the leafy greens that need to come off
the shelves but leave the rest of them from the supply chain intact OK well I never would
have guessed that multiparty systems could actually help with lettuce but there you have
it OK Paul the pressures on now Dave and Melanie have done a great job this last one is
for you my daughter had just recently sprained her ankle you think it's an easy thing to go
and see the doctor to help her but we have to start it at a general doctor send this to a
specialist but then send us to the hospital for the X-ray and that is not even taking all the
insurance companies into account we have to deal with so every time we talk to
somebody new we needed to the respond to the same questions and give the same
answers personal info out there doesn't feel very deep or for just like me could blockchain
help with this you know I think this is a good one where the answer is yes but it's going to
take a little time to get there and that's because of the way that you know health and
privacy and all these things work in different countries but that's absolutely at the heart of
what multiparty systems and blockchain you know promise to solve as we as we move
forward and think about what we talked about is the personal information and having a
single source for truth about your individual information regardless of which provide you
and having the information flow from one provider one doctor one one health facility or
hospital to another think about you know compliance with different you know medical
regulations think about HIPAA that we have here in the US and other regulations and
privacy regulations like GDPR in europe those are the types of things that will be
incorporated in how we deploy multi party systems going forward so i think you know this
this area of health and personal information related to health is an ideal space for us to
talk with multi party systems it's also going to be a complicated one because all the I think
one thing we may see because the environment we're in now with the coronavirus is even
more focused on accelerating solutions like this as we move forward because of the
benefits that it can give to all of us as we think about you know the better flow of
information the better flow of you know testing and all those types of capabilities
throughout the health system OK here I'll do it really well but I say the hardest for the last
one this one so tough that I'm just going to let any of you see if you can answer this one
let's take a look and let's figure out if multi party systems can help Brian with his
challenges and we were quarantined and I'm working at home when my kids are out of
school and it's a little difficult to concentrate I'm not sure about this one you'll leave it to
Brian to put the party back in multi party systems it looks like quite an environment that
he's got in his household there something we have the the the immediate solution for him
but we'll work on that one OK I agree Brian is on his own with that one well thanks for
playing all of you I think that was a great example of how blockchain and multiparty
systems can actually help with some real world problems that a really great show I know I
have learned a lot about black chain and multiparty systems I hope everyone who's
watching has as well but before we go I would love to hear from each of you one key take
away what's the one thing that you would want people to leave the show with kind of
thinking about Melanie let's start with you what would you say Sir you know black chain is
really complex it's as you think about it as emerging technology but when you think about
the business transformation about working together in multi party systems it's really
straightforward what do you want your business to do how do you want it to work in a
new way it's really starts with a strategy conversation and these technologies enable lots
of different ways for us to construct you know new value to be unlocked across the entire
ecosystem so while it might be you know hard to keep up with an emerging technology
it's easy to think about where should your industry be how do you want it to work and use
the technology to help you get there OK great thanks and Dave how about you what
would be your key take away if I build on what Melanie said I I don't think there's a
business out there who says that they're winning strategy is that they reconcile data
better than the other businesses right in the I I would ask everyone to just challenge the
assumptions not just for an individual client or an individual business but challenge the
assumptions across that entire ecosystem across the entire business flow think outside of
industry they you know in you know the the supply chain logistics trade finance insurance
industries all coming together to move a pallet of goods from one place to another
challenging all those assumptions challenging the notion of having to move and reconcile
data and and really rethink the business process let's you know not only think about
making it faster and more automated but we need to do it at all if we had a shared source
of truth perfect love it OK Paul's your chance what's your one take away you know I'd say
it this is a big area of our business and it will be a much bigger part of our business going
forward so it's an important one for us to to all understand and it's not just about the
technology I think everybody's gotten that idea you know we've we've kind of drilled that
one home pretty well this is about reimagining reimagining the way things work you know
for businesses reimagining the way things could work or for people and individuals and
you know the way to think about it is you know where where can you use a shared secure
trusted verifiable single source of the truth to make something work better and that's
where multi party systems can apply great Paul thanks I love that well thank you all for
joining this has been a great show we have learned a lot and I hope that everyone
watching has learned a lot but remember you can always learn more check out the go
deeper section on Pluralsight and our TQ home page where you can find a lot more
materials including case studies and resources all about blockchain and multi party
systems keep learning and we look forward to seeing you next time on the TQ HQ after
show

Blockchain in review

what is blockchain blockchain is a new way of sharing data between organizations that
allow each organization to confidently and securely access the same information it also
provides a common platform to transform business models and Dr. profound positive
change across companies governments institutions and society imagine multiple partners
within the same industry all having access to the same data in near real time not copy of
the data but the actual data itself including its transaction history a single source of truth
in the data means validation no longer relies on primitive systems and reconciliation
instead it's as simple as I see what you see blockchain as a technology think of it as an
opportunity to completely reinvent the way in which organizations share information and
execute their business transactions it's a simplified way of securely sharing data
transferring value and better managing the identity of groups of people things in the
digital world what does blockchain do to better understand let's start with a simple
explanation two cars get into a minor traffic accident both drivers independently contact
their respective insurance companies notifying them of the accident each insurance
company will document the accident known as first notice of lawyers and collect
information such as the police report to complete the claim process the result is each
insurance company has a different description of the same traffic accident this data
collection and reconciliation process is redundant costly time-consuming and prone to
errors by using blockchain a consortium of insurance companies would have shared access
to the same records in real time from a single source of truth only members of this
consortium and other applicable parties such as the police would have access rights and
obligations for usage of the data blockchain provides a shared tamper evident single
source of truth why does it matter blockchain benefits our clients consumers and
individuals in the three main ways it reinvents products processes increases transparency
and improves productivity and quality our previous insurance example demonstrated the
first benefit reinventing products and processes it did this by transforming the business
ecosystem to allow for a shared source of truth let's look at a couple of examples where
increasing transparency is the major benefit there is now the possibility to create a shared
view across companies of all events that took place to create a good or make a product a
retailer or manufacturer can make this information available to its consumers creating
transparency into the entirety of the supply chain this allows consumers to validate the
product's authenticity and build trust in the brand's values such as sustainability
commitments and fair labor practices in addition a unique identifier on a carton of
strawberries is all that is necessary to access the full history of how the strawberries
arrived in the store in the event of a recall on strawberries the impacted products can be
traced by scanning the affected grade barcode to track back to the originating farm now
let's look at how blockchain can help improve productivity and quality simplifying access
of your personal health information would not only reduce the burdensome forms and
repeat tests at each doctor's office clinic or hospital you visit it can also help save lives
with blockchain of where all your personal health data is stored as well as the list of
doctors and health services organizations that are allowed to access it patients can be
empowered to control exactly who under what circumstance and for how long their
personal health data is accessed in an emergency situation having the patients entire
health history including allergies chronic conditions and current medications immediately
accessible at the point of need even when seeing a doctor for the first time can be the
difference between life and death for those non-emergency situations it would make
access to our data more convenient and allow us more information to live healthier lives
how is blockchain applied when companies come together to design multiparty systems it
offers the chance to rewrite the way companies operate by delivering greater data
transparency removing redundant processes and revamping inefficient capabilities beyond
simply automating old processes blockchain eliminate steps and activities among
businesses and facilitates the restructuring of traditional value chains this could
revolutionize the financial services supply chain and identity verification industries let's
look at an example of a coffee grower that incorporates all three facets using an app
creates a personal profile his biometrics such as a fingerprint voice face or iris scan are
securely captured and verified Conn's coffee is ready to be shipped and registered a
barcode is automatically generated with embedded information about Juan his farm and
the coffee itself details may include the farm sustainable practices soil conditions and fair
labor and training standards additional details like temperature and humidity are scanned
at each step along the journey and added to the Ledger the coffee is traceable as it moves
across the supply chain to you we're a simple scan tells the entire story of your coffee and
the farmer that grew it if you really like the coffee someday you would be able to reward
the farmer directly via a secure tech the blockchain turns what used to be a one-way
supply chain into a circular supply chain bringing you and the grower together how does
blockchain work at its most basic level blockchain provide assessment people platform
platforms transcript it's a shared distributed Ledger it uses cryptography and hashing to
ensure that it is tamper effect it is append only which means that it allows additions to the
chain but will not allow data or transactions to be inserted or changed in previously
recorded blocks it relies on consensus or automated agreement within the network to
verify any additions to the chain let's say you've written a book besides selling physical
copies of the book you would like to include it in a members only online library the
membership fees of the online library pay royalties to the authors if members read their
books any publishing house offering books through this online library and the membership
service must be part of a distributed Ledger network basic rules are created using smart
contracts which are not contracts in the legal sense but contain business logic written into
the programming code of the blockchain network these contracts establish the rules and
terms of how transactions will be conducted among parties blockchain uses digital tokens
to represent things of value this is known as tokenization yearbook becomes a digital asset
when your token gets exchanged according to the smart contract rules it creates a
transaction that shows your book was selected for read at the end of the month the total
count of books read is determined and you the author would be compensated this is just
one example of how blockchain is the business environment of the future what is
accenture's role Accenture has a vision to make blockchain a reality for our clients by
reshaping and re platforming entire business ecosystems to unlock value and open new
opportunity Accenture blockchain and multi party systems group brings the right mix of
capabilities to the clients and applies it to their unique situation we do this in a couple
ways we create new business models that are marked value trapped by redundant
processes and inefficient data requests we forge alliances build partnerships and engage
leaders in every aspect of our solution no other company has the same level of experience
and services necessary to remove from the way how does it combine with other
technologies so and with other technologies blockchain and multi party systems are small
part of an overall business revolution combining these technologies with artificial Intel and
the Internet of this game change look at three artificial intelligence anonymized health
data stored on the blockchain would provide an end to end view for a more holistic data
set using this data with AI can revolutionize the diagnosis of disease and treatment
planning clap multi party systems can be used on mobile computers and in the cloud cloud
offerings are referred to as blockchain as a service BAS Accenture also has an open source
blockchain automation framework the hyperledger lab which can be used to automatically
deploy a production ready blockchain platform to an existing cloud Internet of Things the
use of embedded sensors in our technology lets us automatically capture consistent
reliable data for example a farmer can use IT and enabled meteorological equipment to
capture climate information such as the moisture level for a field of soybeans the io T
measurements are automatically recorded on the block proving the quality of the crops
and allowing for a quality digital seal well that's what we have for you on our core
blockchain I hope you learned something new about blockchain and multiparty systems
and you're feeling more confident that you can talk about it with your teams and clients
watch this space as the technology is changing so fast and is much more yet to come if
you're looking for even more blurting out blockchain visit the go deeper channel here on
the plural site or turn back to the TQ homepage and see the other resources and case
studies that we have there and make sure to tune it again for our next time we have a
whole set of teeth until then happy learning