The World Economic Forum has released a new ‘toolkit’ document designed to assist supply chain stakeholders in deploying blockchain technologies, leveraging the lessons learned through analysis of a range of real-life projects.
The Redesigning Trust: Blockchain Deployment Toolkit is the culmination of more than a year of effort to capture best practices from blockchain deployment across different industries, the Forum says, drawing on the expertise of more than 100 organisations.
Contributors include governments, start-ups, companies, academic institutions, international organisations, and technology and supply chain experts, providing differing perspectives to help firms connected to the supply chain to manage the complexities of deploying this new technology.
“The blockchain deployment toolkit is essential for designing solutions that work for a multitude of actors, including smaller players who may not have access to the resources required to unlock the value of blockchain technology,” said Nadia Hewett, Blockchain and Digital Currency Project Lead, World Economic Forum USA.
“For this reason, the toolkit can level the playing field for small and medium-sized enterprises. There are many lessons to learn from the current pandemic and this toolkit is a starting point for improving long-term pandemic preparedness and accelerating an economic recovery led by public-private cooperation.”
The guide identifies nine key requirements that organisations typically need to address to successfully deploy blockchain systems, based on IT best practices and established project management principles.
These include: Defined Business Outcomes; Operational Integrity; Regulatory Compliance; Interoperability; Security; Scalability; Formal Governance and Industry Collaboration; Known and trusted participants; Information Sharing Agreements. Each of these items is extensively examined in the 244-page document.
“We see an acceleration of digitalisation in Maritime Singapore, which has improved productivity and efficiency of the sector. Blockchain has tremendous potential applicability in areas such as bills of lading, cargo-tracking and trade financing,” said Quah Ley Hoon, Chief Executive, Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.
“Maritime Singapore has piloted blockchain technology in electronic bills of lading used by shippers and shipping lines, and the ship registration process between class societies and ship owners. The Singapore government will continue work with industry partners to push forward on this front.”
