02 de July de 2018
The students of EAE Business School had the opportunity to gain an insight into the advantages of this new technology that offers many benefits for a diverse range of sectors, particularly for the supply chain. Among its several benefits, the lecturer highlighted the fact that blockchain saves up to 60% in administrative procedures, as well as being efficient and fast. However, Aleix Ordeig acknowledged that it is still under development and currently lacks clear regulation. He predicts that it will not be completely finished until 2025.
Ordeig explained that blockchain is an immutable distributed ledger which, in turn, can be integrated and programmed. It is immutable insofar as, once data has been entered, it cannot be modified and "a change in the previous data invalidates everything that comes afterwards". In addition, it is decentralized and secure, as the cryptocurrency prevents the falsification of data. This technology ensures the execution, recording and auditability of specific operations.
Aleix made a distinction between public blockchain, in which there is no administrator, it is difficult to ascertain identities and the information is publicly accessible, and private blockchain, an information system for companies with internal payments between departments that is completely centralized and with restricted access to the information at a greater speed.
Benefits of blockchain for the supply chain
This session of the Focused Program held at EAE Business School also analysed the benefits that blockchain offers for the value and supply chain. In general, there is more information about the consumer, greater efficiency in operations and less food fraud. With respect to the supply chain, the lecturer highlighted aspects such as notarization, auditability, time stamping and traceability, as well as automation, the inflow and outflow of documentation and risk management. He also emphasized the configuration that updates contracts almost in real time and create new business models.
Aleix Ordeig also highlighted a few aspects to take into account, such as the fact that blockchain has never been hacked because it is a very secure system. "If cryptocurrencies have been stolen, it is because of human error at a programming level". He also emphasized the fact that, with this technology, nobody can access the money, only the person in question themselves. He went on to discuss smart contract, a software that facilitates, guarantees, ensures compliance with and executes registered agreements between two or more parties.
In Aleix's opinion, at the moment, blockchain is still not ready for use with everything, nor for all sectors. This technology currently facilitates transactions in banking, logistics, loans, the private digital identity that we need to protect, etc., "although it can all be tokenized". Moreover, Ordeig believes that there will be blockchain for sectors, rather than a general bitcoin, with specific ones for each sector in particular. To finish off, Aleix encouraged the students of EAE Business School to buy bitcoins and use the technology at least "to get a feel for it, see how it works and start to familiarize ourselves with it".