Enterprise Blockchain Solutions

In fact, four of the world’s biggest automotive company have united with startups and tech providers to establish the greatest consortium concentrated on blockchain applications on the automotive industry; which was announced last May. The consortium was called Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI) with founding members including BMW, Ford, General Motors and Renault.

Other members include carmakers Bosch and ZF, big-time companies Accenture and IBM, and blockchain software company Consensys. MOBI’s goal is to create common standards that enable payments and data-sharing between cars since having each company develop their own unique wallets, ride-sharing service, etc. just doesn’t work, according to their chairman, Chris Ballinger.

After experimenting with startups, Balliner concluded that a decentralized business network is required to move forward.

With that being said, most businesses today (including in the automotive industry) are still centralized; a bureaucratic structure with the CEO on top together with the board of directors. They centrally control the different departments in order for business to run effectively.

In contrast, most markets are decentralized and often chaotic—the exact opposite of a corporate structure. This begs the question, have we been doing these entirely wrong the whole time?

Let’s look at the bright side of things first. Centralization has led to the establishment of highly regulated centralized infrastructure in the financial markets that changed the entire industry. For instance, the stock market, Forex market, and bonds market became what it is today due to the efforts of centralized regulatory bodies.

However, there are trade-offs. Centralization requires trusting intermediaries, needs regulatory audits to prevent fraud, and have a central point of weakness. It is far from a perfect system but now we have an alternative which is distributed ledger technology (DLT). Most people call this blockchain due to the fact that blockchain is the most common form of DLT, but there are others as well.

Blockchain enterprise will improve cross-industry cooperation by creating distributed ledgers, focusing on enhancing the performance and reliability of these systems so that they are capable of supporting global transactions by major companies.

One very advantageous element of most blockchains is smart contracts, which is technically an agreement between two parties by which the terms they agreed upon are executed automatically without the need for third-party.

These types of contract structure are resistant to fraud and manipulation because of the immutability of most blockchains and of course, the absence of the third-party that could potentially compromise a deal.

A real-life example for smart contracts application would be in health care. For instance, pharmaceutical companies could form a consortium similar to MOBI and share important medical information via the blockchain.

Most blockchains are public blockchains but it doesn’t need to be that way. Since many companies don’t want to divulge their daily operations, a private blockchain may be a better fit.

Private blockchains will require an invitation and must be validated by either by a company/association or by a set of rules put in place by a company/association. This will restrict outsiders from joining the network just as most companies want.

With all the innovation going on this space, blockchain enterprise seems to have a bright future ahead. The accelerated development of distributed ledger technology combined with multi-industry business interest will drive more enterprises to enter the blockchain scene.