Expert Group “Blockchain in Supply Chain Management” meeting in June 2018 – highlights

On Tuesday 26th of June, the Expert Group “Blockchain Technology in Supply Chain Management” held its 2nd meeting at the ZHAW premises in Zurich. The meeting’s main topic was to continue the rich exchange of ‘know-how’ and ‘lessons learnt’ from different blockchain projects conducted by the Expert Group’s participants.

Two proof-of-concept presentations by ZHAW students initiated the meeting and revealed valuable insights and learnings from two different business applications of blockchain technology in Supply Chain Management. After this brief introduction and the subsequent discussion of the two blockchain prototypes, the members split into three different workshops and started to write down the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of blockchain technology in Supply Chain Management.

The participants of the first workshop looked mainly into the technical aspects of blockchain, the second group elaborated on the legal issues that come along with this new technology and the third group worked towards new business cases.

Afterwards, each group presented their finding in the plenum such that all could benefit from the workshop-specific ideas and from the proposed recommendations for companies and academia. The group agreed that even though there remain many technical and legal questions open, the current development has the potential to equip blockchain pioneers with a competitive advantage and a steep learning curve. Nevertheless, there are still many points to discuss and we are looking forward to meeting again and generating further insights and learnings after the summer break in September.