EY Launches OpsChain Network Procurement Platform

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As you may have read, EY, one of the world’s largest consultancy firms, recently announced a new Ethereum-based solution aimed at streamlining enterprise resource planning (ERP).The OpsChain Network Procurement platform is designed to support enterprise networks, allowing buyers and sellers to operate as networks, while automatically tracking volumes and spend, and utilizing agreed terms and pricing.

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Hybrid Blockchain Is The Next Generation Architecture

Antony Welfare, Chief Commercial Officer at NEM Software:

“We are starting to see significant traction in the enterprise space for Blockchain and DLT based solutions to their challenges. From its beginnings in the finance world, Blockchain for enterprise is growing and solutions are expanding rapidly. As referenced in Commercializing Blockchain (Welfare, 2019), "The entire complexity of enterprise systems, can be simplified and in some cases automated, with Blockchain technology. This will allow the enterprise to concentrate on its customer and ensure that they are continually meeting or exceeding the customer expectations.” This is where EY, and other blockchain enterprise platforms, are starting to gain significant traction. 

The adoption of the EY Baseline protocol, does not necessarily suggest that corporates will use Ethereum Mainnet for implementing their use-cases--Ethereum is a public blockchain, which is not yet suitable for scalable, and secure enterprise transactions. Hybrid Blockchain is the next generation of Public and Private blockchain in one architecture. 

New platforms are being launched to capitalise on the shift from Private/permissioned blockchains, but lack scalability required for enterprise challenges. The current public only blockchains must be completely reconfigured to provide this security to enterprise, and Ethereum is a long way from this--ETH 2.0 starts in 2021 and is not likely to be completed for a number of years. 

Procurement and the management of this process for enterprise requires co-ordination of a vast number of parties, projects and complexities. This lends itself to a Blockchain solution--where one can manage complex parties in a trusted way, using the Blockchain as a transparent platform. All parties will be kept up to date at all times, and the agreements can then be “written" to contract using Blockchain technology. 

The requirement of Hybrid blockchain is even more important, to have a fair and open procurement process, you need transparency and trust--this can be achieved extremely well using Hybrid Blockchain solutions, which protect the enterprise data and security, but allow all public parties tender and be fairly assessed. The public part of the blockchain can ensure that external bodies and regulators can clearly see what has been transacted and investigate enterprise transactions as required.”

Adopting Distributed Ledger Technology

Luciano Nonnis, CEO and Founder of DXone:

Enterprise firms are exploring distributed ledger and blockchain technology for use in their business operations. For example, the Baseline protocol, which is a vital component to EY’s recently announced ERP platform, is used by more than 600 firms, including Coca-Cola bottling group, Coke One North America. 

The world’s top corporations are at least looking at adopting distributed ledger technology. And EY has been on the front line pushing Ethereum at major US corporations. You have in EY a “Big Four” auditing firm backing a public blockchain, not a private ledger. EY has detailed in some of its reports how private blockchains fail to be adopted like their public counterparts. 

Perhaps in part due to these findings on private blockchains, the firm emphasises that Ethereum is the best inroad into blockchain for Fortune 500 companies. EY treats Ethereum less like a database and more like a middleware, which could prove to be a clever workaround to Ethereum’s potential scaling issues in the future. 

EY clearly invests considerably into crypto and has an array of products to show for it. For instance, the firm just released a blockchain analyser which allows users to explore, track, and analyse trends for on-chain data. And back in December 2019, it released a “third-generation zero-knowledge proof” blockchain technology to the public domain per their effort to make public networks ready for enterprise adoption. We’re keeping an eye on what comes next from EY; in particular, its use of Ethereum as a middleware.”