• The business value-add of blockchain will grow to slightly more than $176B by 2025, then exceed $3.1T by 2030 according to Gartner.
• Typical product recalls cost $8M, and many could be averted with improved track-and-traceability enabled by blockchain.
• Combining blockchain and IoT will revolutionise product safety, track-and-traceability, warranty management, Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (MRO), and lead to new usage-based business models for smart, connected products.
• By 2023, 30% of manufacturing companies with more than $5B in revenue will have implemented Industry 4.0 pilot projects using blockchain, up from less than 5% today according to Gartner.

Blockchain’s greatest potential to deliver business value is in manufacturing. Increasing visibility across every area of manufacturing starting with suppliers, strategic sourcing, procurement, and supplier quality to shop floor operations including machine-level monitoring and service, blockchain can enable entirely new manufacturing business models. Supply chains are the foundation of every manufacturing business, capable of making use of blockchain’s distributed ledger structure and block-based approach to aggregating value-exchange transactions to improve supply chain efficiency first. By improving supplier order accuracy, product quality, and track-and-traceability, manufacturers will be able to meet delivery dates, improve product quality and sell more.

Capgemini Research Institute’s recent study, Does blockchain hold the key to a new age of supply chain transparency and trust? provide valuable insights into how blockchain can improve supply chains and manufacturing. A copy of the study is available here (PDF, 32 pp., no opt-in). Capgemini surveyed 731 organisations globally regarding their existing and planned blockchain initiatives. Initial interviews yielded 447 organisations who are currently experimenting with or implementing blockchain. Please see pages 25 & 26 of the study for additional details regarding the methodology.

Key takeaways of the study include the following:

Typical product recalls cost $8 million, and many could be averted with improved track-and-traceability enabled by blockchain

Capgemini found that there was 456 food recalls alone in the U.S. last year, costing nearly $3.5B. Blockchain’s general ledger structure provides a real-time audit trail for all transactions secured against modifications making it ideal for audit and compliance-intensive industries.

Gaining greater cost savings (89%), enhancing traceability (81%) and enhancing transparency (79%) are the top three drivers behind manufacturer’s blockchain investments today

Additional drivers include increasing revenues (57%), reducing risks (50%), creating new business opportunities (44%) and being more customer-centric (38%). The following graphic from the study illustrates the manufacturer’s priorities for blockchain. Capgemini finds that improving track-and-traceability is a primary driver across all manufacturers, consistent with the broader trend of manufacturers adopting software applications that improve this function today. That’s also understandable given how additional regulatory compliance requirements are coming in 2019 and those manufacturers competing in highly regulated industries including aerospace & defense, medical devices, and pharma are exploring how blockchain can give them a competitive edge now

Digital marketplaces, tracking critical supply chain parameters, tracking components quality, preventing counterfeit products, and tracking asset maintenance are the five areas Capgemini predicts blockchain will see the greatest adoption

Based on interviews with industry experts and startups, Capgemini found 24 blockchain use cases which are compared by level of adoption and complexity in the graphic below. The use cases reflect how managing supplier contracts is already emerging as one of the most popular blockchain use cases for manufacturing organisations today and will accelerate as compliance becomes even more important in 2019.

Manufacturers have the most at-scale deployments of blockchain today, leading all industries included in the study

Blockchain adoption is still nascent across all industries included in the study, with 6% of manufacturers having at-scale implementations today. Customer products manufacturers lead in pilots, with 15% actively [purusing blockchain in limited scope today. And retailers trail all industries with 91% having only proofs of concept.

Combining IoT and blockchain at the shipping container level in supply chains increases authenticity, transparency, compliance to product and contractual requirements while reducing counterfeiting

In highly regulated industries including Aerospace & Defense (A&D), Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), medical devices, and pharma, combining IoT and blockchain provides real-time data on the shipping container conditions, tamper-proof storage, each shipment’s locational history and if there have been changes in temperature and product condition. Capgemini sees use cases where a change in a shipment’s temperature as measured by a sensor change sends alerts regarding contractual compliance of perishable meats and produce, averting the potential of bad product quality and rejected shipments once they reach their destination.

Capgemini found that 13% of manufacturers are 'pacesetters' and are either implementing blockchain at scale or have pilots in at least one site

Over 60% of Pacesetters believe that blockchain is already transforming the way they collaborate with their partners. Encouraged by these results, Pacesetters are set to increase their blockchain investment by 30% in the next three years. They lead early stage experimenters and all implementers on three core dimensions of organisational readiness. These include end-to-end visibility across functions, detailed and defined supportive processes, and availability of the right talent to succeed.

Lack of a clear ROI, immature technology and regulatory challenges are the top three hurdles pacesetter-class manufacturers face in getting blockchain initiatives accepted and into production

All implementations face these three challenges in addition to having to overcome the lack of complementary IT systems at the partner organisations. The following graphic compares the hurdles all manufacturers face in getting blockchain projects implemented by the level of manufacturers adoption success (Pacesetter, early-stage experimenters, all implementers).

 Interested in hearing leading global brands discuss subjects like this in person? Find out more at the Blockchain Expo World Series, Global, Europe and North America.

Alibaba has hailed a 90% year-on-year increase in its cloudy operations – posting quarterly revenues of $825 million (£636m).

Total revenue for the company was at $12.4 billion (£9.57bn), meaning cloud contributed to 6.6% of the overall pot. Overall revenues rose 54% year over year, representing the first time the company’s growth did not break 55% in seven quarters.

Among Alibaba Cloud’s highlights over the past three months were a partnership with Intel around edge computing, further expansion in the Asia Pacific region, as well as the opening of data centre operations in London.

On the architectural side, Alibaba cited the release of Apsara 2.0 as a ‘comprehensive upgrade’ to its cloud operating system, promising more efficient network connections and the ability to bring edge computing to connected devices at scale.

The company’s continual exploration and expansion has been of interest for some time. As multi-cloud becomes the de facto setting for many organisations noting performance benefits with different workloads, Alibaba feels it can seize the opportunity to be the second or third provider in Europe and other markets. Around the time of the London news breaking, the company rebuffed claims that it was scaling back its US operations.

Regardless, Alibaba Cloud’s global footprint is getting bigger. According to a note published by data and analytics firm GlobalData in October, the company was gaining significantly in Asia Pacific outside of its Chinese heartland. Figures from Synergy Research argued Alibaba had the most market share in APAC outside of AWS, putting it in fourth position overall despite not being in the top five vendors in any other geography.

Daniel Zhang, Alibaba Group CEO, noted the sense of opportunity coming with what he described as a ‘setback in the global economy’ – with cloud as a part of it.

“First, we see opportunity to greatly expand our addressable market by executing our new retail strategy that digitalises store-based operations,” he told analysts. “Second, we have built a technology platform that empowers the digital transformation of enterprises in China. This will not only create new ways of sales and distribution, but also driving innovation in the entire value chain of retail operations.

“At the core, our data insights on both enterprises and consumers and our leading cloud computing technologies created a unique Alibaba business operating system for this digital era,” added Zhang.

You can read the company’s full financial results here (pdf).

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases? Attend the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.

Another example of an ‘industry cloud’, albeit this time with a twist: car hire firm Avis is tapping into Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help with connected car data analysis.

Avis is using AWS Connected Vehicle Solution, the infrastructure behemoth’s product which focuses on transporting vehicle data to Amazon’s cloud securely, with low latency and low overhead.

Options for customers include local computing within vehicles, as well as data processing and storage. The technology can be seen as essentially a three-way process between AWS Greengrass, which takes AWS’ cloud to local devices, S3 storage, and Lambda, AWS’ serverless offering.

Avis has more than 100,000 connected cars in its fleet today and will be uploading data from a variety of vehicle manufacturers for data management and analytics purposes. The company’s goal with the AWS move is to persuade partners on board with the promise of anonymised connected car data which could glean insights around smart city planning, such as road conditions and traffic volume data.

“The platform we built leveraging AWS’s connected vehicle solution gives us advanced data management and scalable analytics capabilities for our connected car platform,” said Arthur Orduna, Avis Budget Group chief innovation officer. “We now have the ability to scale up based on demand and our data is backed by AWS’s software and massive infrastructure, so we have access to new insights-driven tools, storage resources, and first-class security.”

AWS is by no means the only major cloud provider to be exploring this area. One of Microsoft’s more recent pieces of customer braggadocio has been around its work with Volkswagen. The result is the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud, which uses most of the aces in Microsoft’s pack to create a real-time experience, from Azure IoT, to PowerBI and Skype. Similarly, BMW is tapping Microsoft’s AI services to build an intelligent agent in its cars.

The ‘automotive cloud’ concept is a particularly interesting one – vehicle manufacturers are feeling increasingly comfortable partnering with tech companies and playing to each other’s strengths. The continued partnerships pursued by Intel and its subsidiary Mobileye are bearing fruit; BMW was an early adopter, with Fiat Chrysler getting on board later. Last week, it was announced that Volkswagen – albeit not an official member of the group – would launch a ‘mobility as a service’ self-driving taxi operation in Israel next year.

Avis and AWS’ partnership dates back to last year when the former helped provide a skill for Amazon Alexa.

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their use-cases? Attend the co-located IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, AI & Big Data Expo and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam and explore the future of enterprise technology.

The vast majority of businesses now use cloud services, yet many still struggle with realizing the full potential of their IT investments. In particular, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) lack the internal IT staff and expertise to fully move to and manage workloads in public cloud environments. Speaker Todd Schwartz will help session attendees better navigate the complex cloud market and maximize their technical investments. The SkyKick co-founder and co-CEO will share the biggest challenges uncovered by the company’s [2017 survey](https://offers.skykick.com/top-cloud-challenges) of North American business, sales and IT leaders.

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The transition to microservices-based application development is well underway. About nine out of 10 surveyed organizations are using or have plans to use microservices, and a like number expect to expand their use in the year ahead.1

Likewise, the scope and reach of cloud computing continue to expand beyond its early use for cost-saving, lift-and-shift migration of workloads and services from data centers to the cloud. Since the early days of cloud computing, running workloads on public clouds has become common practice, with an estimated 92 percent of organizations now doing so.2

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Clare Hopping

Clare Hopping

Clare Hopping

Contino is a global technical consultancy that helps highly-regulated enterprises transform faster, modernizing their way of working through DevOps and cloud computing. They focus on building capability and assisting our clients to in-source strategic technology capability so they get to market quickly and build their own innovation engine.

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The majority of top brass at UK organisations say they concerned about the digital skills divide – yet only a small percentage are willing to invest in digital skills training for existing staff.

That’s the key finding from a report by cloudy software firm Domo. The study, titled ‘Leading at the Speed of Data’ and which polled 107 CEOs in total, found a generational gap in some areas. 84% of CEOs aged between 25 and 34 said data could ‘be a threat’ to the future of their business, while just over half of over 55s said the same.

In total, 71% of all respondents said a lack of data access and skills could put their organisation at risk. While only 17% said they would invest in training for existing staff, few more (18%) said they planned to invest in recruiting employees with strong digital skills. The gap, therefore, could not be more pronounced.

As may not be entirely surprising, the generational divide is strong when it comes to working routines. The research found that more than half (54%) of 25-34 year olds check analytics and email first thing in the morning and last thing at night, while four in five CEOs over the age of 45 prefer to wait until they are in the office before checking in.

“In any growing business, CEOs need to become the digital leaders, ensuring the right training and tools to maximise every possible opportunity,” said Ian Tickle, SVP and general manager of Domo EMEA. “It’s well within their grasp, especially when it comes to the little things like real-time access, which many said would make their jobs easier, that technology can provide. It’s just a matter of actioning it sooner, rather than later to ensure the risk doesn’t become a reality.”

The cloud and digital skills gap has been discussed for about as long as the rise of cloud and digital itself. For those who have the ammunition at their disposal, the prize is a good one: according to Q2 data from UK-based technical recruiter Experis, a skilled employee at one of the cloud behemoths can expect anywhere between £64,000 and £71,000 as their salary. Contractors can rate for approximately between £450 and £500 per day.

Yet getting those skills? That’s a different story. As many who have grappled with them will be aware – not least from a security perspective, as this publication reported last month – the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure are complex, but comprehensive. The rise of cloud cost management companies is in no small part down to companies adopting a major cloud provider, but not using its most efficient settings.

Knowledge gaps are everywhere – yet organisations are however in place which can help. Technical recruiters certainly have skin in the game. Writing for this publication in May, Alex Bennett, of Firebrand Training, saw serverless, multi-cloud and machine learning (ML) as key skills to read up on if you want to be a star candidate in 2019 and beyond. Naturally, many of these courses are run by the cloud behemoths themselves; AWS’ Lambda tutorials and webinars, Microsoft’s MCSA Machine Learning course, and so on.

For another perspective, Cloud Academy – whose training plans span AWS, Azure and Google, as well as DevOps, serverless and ML – last month launched two new products aimed at providing greater visibility for potential scholars. Cloud Roster, a job roles matrix, analyses real-time data aimed at giving a full picture of trending technologies, while Cloud Catalog offers a stack ranking of technologies by popularity and geography based on data from developer community platforms.

The message here? Don’t wait for companies to send you out to a training course. If you want to get ahead, get in there yourself first.

You can read the full Domo report here (email required).

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases? Attend the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.