Look to see what benefits blockchain technology could bring your company - expert at Chamber of Commerce conference urges business community

Last week the Zug Chamber of Commerce along with the Chief Digital Community organised a public conference at the Parkhotel about the benefits of blockchain technology and in particular its use in small and medium-sized companies.

While blockchain technology is primarily known for its use in cryptocurrencies, it serves many other purposes, as speakers at the conference pointed out.

First of all, Tim Weingärtner, a lecturer of the School of IT at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, spoke about how an information chain could be put together and what potential it offered. “It can be used to document where things have come from and where they are going,” he said.

Then other experts in this field talked about the advantages blockchain brought to various businesses, such as those operating in ticketing and those operating in logistics with fleets of vehicles, enabling more transparent delivery chains, for example.

According to Reto Fankhauser (photograph), a senior solution architect of the Elca Informatik AG company, most positive experiences had been able to be enjoyed in blockchain-based ticketing methods, tickets being issued on a personalised basis and only a short time before the event was to due take place, obviating the need for bulk purchase of tickets in advance and no black market for touts, with entrance controlled by barcode or app on a mobile phone. As to whether a ticket can be transferred to another person, or the price changed, this can be controlled by the event organiser himself.

There followed a talk by Waldemar Scherer of the Swisscom Blockchain AG company, who said that in 2018 three billion items of data had been stolen and used for fraudulent activity, hence he advocated use of a Self Sovereign Identity, a decentralised identity, which meant each user having full control over his personal data, something he thought had great potential for growth, not least for companies or authorities wanting to simplify processes and reduce both effort and costs.

For his part, Marcel Amstutz, the chief technology officer at the Mobility car sharing company, said that, as a member of the board of trustees of the Car Dossier organisation, he was convinced blockchain technology could play a great role in simplifying the documentation processes relating to the import of vehicles and fleet management, with special benefits for the purchasers of second-hand vehicles, too, an app being able to provide the potential buyer with unfalsifiable information relating to its mileage and whether it had been in accident or not.

Finally, Ulrich Schimpel of IBM Switzerland, mentioned that, for him, blockchain meant individual responsibility combined with security and adequate visibility, and went onto talk about the Tradelens eco-system, through which worldwide cargo transactions could be made and be monitored by all participants, from the arrival of the empty container to its delivery with the goods at the client’s location. “Every company should consider what advantages blockchain technology could bring,” he concluded.