In this new monthly
Strategic Sourceror series I’ll be reviewing all matters in New and Emerging
Tech. My goal in this series will be to share insightful considerations on emerging tech trends and the respective sourcing implications/implementation for your businesses and stakeholders. This series will be kept at monthly review to cover only the most relevant information in the industry - so please feel free to sign up for our monthly News Letter to keep your business in the know and innovating.
Tech. My goal in this series will be to share insightful considerations on emerging tech trends and the respective sourcing implications/implementation for your businesses and stakeholders. This series will be kept at monthly review to cover only the most relevant information in the industry - so please feel free to sign up for our monthly News Letter to keep your business in the know and innovating.
First up in the series,
and what better place to start, than the highly anticipated tech and promise Supply
chain's across the world have for Blockchain. This tech has been piloted in the
most notoriously difficult industries in the world for buyers and sellers.
Problem: Fraud.
Solution – Blockchain? The Diamond Trade: Supply Chain Folk, Take Notes.
Is Blockchain the
“TECH” that will make all of your supply chain troubles go away? Potentially.
But one thing is for sure, there are still many problems that both MFG
industries and the technologies need to work through before the major tipping
point occurs. Just like in any new tech that shows promise, there will always
be earlier adopters that urgently need the promise this solution makes, PERIOD.
One of these industries that has more than theoretical hype is the Diamond
Industry. The social/moral justice concerns, popularized by Leonardo
Di-Caprio’s Blood Diamond, now finally has a solution that beats Leonardo’s
machete to cut through the forest of corrupted local forces as the foremost “tough
guy” in the country (smh). That solution and company name is Everledger, a
provider of the immutable ledger for diamond ownership and related transaction
history verification.
This solution is the
story of young tech that as of a couple years ago was considered a
“moon-shot”. But through creative application, the sourcing and
purchasing of diamonds has become much more transparent for the benefit of the
industry overall. In 2012 alone, 65% of fraudulent claims went undetected -costing
nearly $3 billion USD annually (in just direct costs.) With claims of fraud
this high it is no wonder that this industry has been one of the first to take
on the blockchain charge.
To date, there are 2M
stones registered on Everledger’s semi-private network. While the program only
tracks quality and stone. There is much hope that this can begin to track
history and other factors alike with 100% certainty. This process has been
unverified previously through paper records and fragmented networks. And while
maybe your next diamond can be less expensive (though unlikely, as we all know
diamonds are artificially inflated market), these diamonds that are being
tracked seek a 30% consumer premium. The market premium will eventually
normalize once this guarantee on quality of purchase reaches entire ubiquity.
To the un-familiar
eye this advent seems like a digitization play but there is much more under the
hood here. Digitization seems in comparison as though it is for the
digitization’s sake and the relative internal use of that effort. The point
use-case for diamond trade was to bring transparency through digitization. And
primarily because the goods at trade are so pricey we can let the diamond
industry pave the way and be the frontier in this new supply chain wading through
uncharted waters. This tech is here to stay and you need not fret this
impending change. It will very likely come to your organization agnostic of the
crypto-currency taint that is currently beginning to face regulator pressures. More
to the point, Blockchain tech can be incorporated for efficiency gains and what
we like to call an Enterprise Resource Plan 3.0 that will revolutionize the
matter in which operationally disparate systems and firms/groups operate.
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