Blockchain for business is built on a shared, immutable ledger that is permissioned to increase efficiency among trusted partners. This enables businesses to transact more smoothly and efficiently.
How does blockchain work for business?
Blockchain for business is valuable for entities transacting with one another. With distributed ledger technology, permissioned participants can access the same information at the same time to improve efficiency, build trust, and remove friction. Blockchain also allows a solution to rapidly size and scale, and many solutions can be adapted to perform multiple tasks across industries. Blockchain for business delivers these benefits based on four attributes unique to the technology:
Consensus: Shared ledgers are updated only after the transaction is validated by all relevant participants involved.
Replication: Once a block — the record of an event — is approved, it is automatically created across the ledgers for all participants in that channel. Every network partner sees and shares a single “trusted reality” of the transactions.
Immutability: More blocks can be added, but not removed, so there is a permanent record of every transaction, which increases trust among the stakeholders.
Security: Only authorized entities are allowed to create blocks and access them. Only trusted partners are given access permission.
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Across industries around the world, blockchain is helping transform business. Greater trust leads to greater efficiency by eliminating duplication of effort. Blockchain is revolutionizing the supply chain, food distribution, financial services, government, retail, and more.
We all eat – and we’ve all had second thoughts about food safety or freshness. What if we might replace those doubts with visibility into every step from farm to fork? Many companies are now doing just that, sharing and by using data from IBM Food Trust™, built on the IBM Blockchain® Platform.
Discover how growers, processors, distributors, and retailers are making food safer, lengthening shelf lives, reducing waste, and unlocking better access to shared, secure information that impacts us all.
Think of everything that you’ve used today. How did it get here? Today’s supply chain is a complex network of relationships, scheduling, systems, and data. Even the smallest error can lead to delays that have tremendous ripple effects.
By digitizing and automating paperwork across supply chains, IBM Blockchain helps better manage documents across organizations and borders. Including, shippers, ports, customs services, logistics providers, banks, insurers, and others, all in real time and with absolute precision.
Whether it’s between people or organizations, relationships flourish when there’s more trust. From jewelry to insurance to food, IBM Blockchain can elevate that trust to an entirely new level. By helping parties who are transacting together validate and share immutable transaction records on a private, distributed ledger.
This shared record of truth leads to everything from less paperwork and fewer disputes, to happier customers and entirely new ways of doing business.
Learn how innovators in various industries are transforming their businesses through use cases that are built on the IBM Blockchain Platform.
Vertrax: Igniting success in a multicloud deployment
The oil and gas supply chain is a complex interplay of coordination and competition. But extreme weather and other unexpected events can wreak havoc, and the entire supply chain suffers. The Vertrax Blockchain – built on the IBM Blockchain Platform and deployed on AWS for multicloud users – brings new insights into those events for quicker responses.
we.trade: Making cross-border trade easier with blockchain
Collectively, small and medium-size enterprises are a dynamic economic force. Individually, they struggle to secure the trade financing they need to grow with their banks stretched too thin to service their needs. With we.trade, Europe's leading banks now use blockchain efficiency to reduce much of the cost and risk that is associated with SME trade finance requests.
Golden State Foods: A taste for collaboration
As food travels through the supply chain, how can anyone really be sure of its exact condition? By using blockchain, IoT and cognitive analytics. One example of this is Golden State Foods, CTO Guilda Javaheri and her team are giving quick-serve restaurants unparalleled visibility into food's journey to the customer, every step of the way.
Resources
Hyperledger Fabric is an open-source, modular blockchain framework for developing enterprise-grade applications with industry strategies.
Governments, businesses and institutions use blockchain to enable a secure and trusted infrastructure for digital identity and credentials.
Blockchain is a trustless network that provides enhanced security, transparency and automation
The Home Depot implements IBM Blockchain technology to resolve vendor disputes and improve supply chain efficiency.
IPwe uses IBM Blockchain and AI to create a transparent global patent market, helped by IBM to increase visibility and flexibility.
Enabling companies of all sizes to trade across borders, helping to drive global economic growth.
IBM Blockchain Platform: Hyperledger Fabric Support Edition provides SLAs and 24x7 enterprise support for Hyperledger Fabric, the de facto standard for enterprise blockchain platforms from the Linux Foundation.
IBM Blockchain helps supply chain partners share trusted data through permissioned blockchain solutions, increasing transparency and trust.
IBM Consulting is a global consultancy that works side by side with clients to design, build, and operate high-performing businesses.