Deloitte, one of the big four tax and audit advisory firms, appeared at Consensus 2018 in New York earlier this week showing off half a dozen blockchain focused projects from its network of member firms.
Products and services on display included a secure platform that uses blockchain hardware, known as ‘cryptographic tags’, to give physical goods an unalterable digital identity, in effect a ‘digital twin’. According to Deloitte’s statement, these tags can be used to guarantee the location and condition of products along the supply chain, enabling real-time surveillance and directing marketplace capabilities where goods are bought and sold, even as they travel through the supply chain.
Deloitte also showcased: products which combine machine learning with data integrity checks, to identify behavior associated with malware; a business-to-government compliance and financial reporting portal and real-time validation and sharing of certified qualifications between educators and employers.
Principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP and global leader of Deloitte’s Financial Services Consulting team, Joe Guastella stated, “We’re still early in blockchain’s development, so fits and starts in its maturation are not surprising. In financial services, the technology has already inspired the industry to re-examine processes and functions that have been static for decades. We are broadly seeing applications in production – as well as developing them ourselves for clients – and we believe this momentum will continue.”
At Consensus, Deloitte principle Linda Pawczuk, the head of the company’s U.S. Financial Services Blockchain group, took part in a panel, alongside legal experts from Koch Industries. The panel discussed the growing role of patents and other types of intellectual property protection in the economy, even as key aspects of managing IP have not changed in decades.
Deloitte and Koch Industries plan to work together to build an industry-led platform to decrease operational costs, and increase ownership verifiability and transparency, enabling new insights into how IP is used and distributed.
image by Bjørn Erik Pedersen. CC BY-SA 4.0