3 ways blockchain is ushering in the Century of Collaboration

Collaboration hasn’t been a popular business buzzword until now.  Since the industrial revolution, businesses have thrived by following a tried-and-true model: outgrow the competition and dominate the market, often as ruthlessly as possible.

But if competition was key to businesses’ survival in the 20th century, the buzzword of the 21st is rapidly becoming collaboration, and it’s literally a whole new way of doing business.  What’s brought about this sea change is a key development in the way we handle and store data:  blockchain.

Here are three examples where companies are grabbing onto blockchain as an opportunity to build collaboration into their business model in a way that not only helps them survive but benefits everybody in their sector at the same time.

1. BMW’s Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative

When big automakers like BMW, General Motors, Ford, and Renault are coming together for a head-to-head with technology leaders like IBM, Bosch, Hyperledger, and IOTA, you have to know something incredible is afoot.  Reps from these companies gathered recently in Munich to talk about making what they call the “mobility industry” safer, greener, and more accessible than ever before.

How can blockchain accomplish that?

One of blockchain’s strengths and the core of a number of use cases is supply-chain transparency.  Fake replacement parts are the bane of the auto industry today, as well as a dangerous menace to everyone on the roads.  By introducing blockchain-based provenance and tracking systems, the companies are hoping to reduce the risk and build greater safety into the system.

So the next time your car needs spare parts, you just might want to peek under the hood for the blockchain seal of approval.

2. Maersk and Maritime Blockchain Labs

Danish company Maersk, the largest container ship and supply vessel operator in the world, along with a number of other companies and organizations in the field, are attempting to bring trust, safety, and clear common standards to seafarer certification.

Using blockchain for authentication of safety documentation and training certifications, the consortium hopes to replace inefficient, unreliable, and non-standard paper-based certificates with a digital certification and endorsement process that will draw on a secure digital repository of verified crew documentation, training logs and approvals.

It will make things a lot better for a lot of people and companies.  But it will only work through collaboration. Fortunately, with a giant like Maersk in the lead, others in the shipping industry are sure to get on board.

3. IBM Food Trust

In the old days, food was much simpler.  You knew all your neighbors, the ones growing your grains and fruits and vegetables if you weren’t growing them yourself.  Another neighbor raised the cows whose milk you drank, while another raised the chickens you ate around the table built with your own hands.  Few food products traveled more than a few miles from source to the dinner table.

Today, that’s all changed, and with complexity has come risks, including food-borne illnesses and counterfeit ingredients.  Food products are recalled as soon as authorities or companies realize there’s a problem, but tracing them back to the source has proven very, very difficult.

IBM Food Trust is changing that, with supply chain tracking built on blockchain that lets suppliers and buyers worldwide verify provenance quickly and efficiently.

Through collaboration, the IBM Food Trust is helping improve communication up and down the supply chain.  Companies aren’t just shipping products in a single direction, they’re working together to build an ecosystem of trust.  The system’s transparency also helps ensure accurate, up-to-date information from the field to factory to table.  And it will make it easier for every company along the way to both prevent recalls and manage them should they become necessary.

Darwin would have loved the old-world economy.  Let’s face it, competition and survival of the fittest ruled for a very long time.  But examples like these are showing them the door and proving that sharing best practices is just as viable a path to survival, if not more so, ushering in the brand-new Century of (blockchain) Collaboration.

IBM created an infrastructure for cultivating trustless ecosystems and is implementing networks that were never thought possible. Watch the video below for inspiration.

Click here to build a blockchain application by getting your 6-month free trial of IBM Blockchain