Cointelegraph, the leading publication for blockchain and cryptocurrency news, has announced the launch of its Cointelegraph Consulting division. The new business sector is focused on advancing enterprise blockchain adoption by helping companies understand the potential of blockchain technology and then matching them with enterprise blockchain vendors to implement solutions.
According to Gartner, the business value added by blockchain will grow to more than $176 billion by 2025. This number is expected to exceed $3.1 trillion by 2030. While the growth of enterprise blockchain is on the rise, traditional consulting firms are just becoming familiar with the blockchain space.
Given Cointelegraph’s six years of expertise covering the blockchain industry, the company believes that it is best positioned to boost enterprise blockchain adoption by educating and connecting customers with leading blockchain vendors. Its wide network across blockchain startups and technology leaders will facilitate this endeavor.
Cointelegraph Consulting is initially partnering with Insolar, a provider of scalable private and public blockchain solutions focused on North American and European enterprise markets, and VeChain, which powers Walmart China’s blockchain platform, along with Foodgates’ blockchain food traceability program.
Arsenii Dain, managing director of Cointelegraph Consulting, told Cointelegraph:
"There is great potential for enterprises to adopt blockchain technology, but there still isn’t enough education and collaboration between service providers and those willing to embrace blockchain for the enterprise."
According to Dain, Cointelegraph Consulting offers a unique, unbiased market strategy, with the potential to bring the organization’s wide network together with professional consultants.
The Cointelegraph Consulting division is led by industry veterans, technology analysts and former Boston Consulting Group, Accenture and McKinsey senior experts. These individuals will assist enterprise customers during every stage of the blockchain implementation process. Together, they will identify use cases, review different vendors, and provide assistance in bringing a solution to market. The last part is particularly vital given that, by Insolar’s estimate, only 7% of enterprise blockchain pilots actually make it into production today.
“We are not a consulting firm trying to sell our own solutions to companies,” explained Dain. “Rather, we have a unique market strategy that is completely unbiased and transparent. We are connecting industry participants within our vast network to enterprise blockchain vendors that are suited to meet their tangible business needs.”
Cointelegraph Consulting will also offer its clients unbiased reports and educational materials that demonstrate how blockchain can bring real value to enterprises.
“The reports we are producing are explanations of what blockchain vendors do,” said Dain. “Our clients typically view these materials as beneficial because they are not a sales pitch.”
For example, together with Insoalr, Cointelegraph Consulting produced a report entitled, “Empowering Supply Chain Digital Transformation with Distributed Ledgers.”
This report analyzed five enterprise blockchain use cases across automotive, retail, mining and manufacturing industries to assess blockchain adoption in supply chains. Several supply chain challenges related to trust that blockchain solutions can help solve are cited in the document. Key findings include:
Poor traceability – 70% supply chain visibility gap between initial suppliers and internal clients’ systems.
Poor automation – 90% of retailers inaccurately forecast demand
Poor relations across multiple counterparties – 60% of companies regularly overpay their supply chain vendors.
Regulatory compliance burden – 45% of supply chain executives say that they are experiencing increased pressure for regulatory compliance and internal compliance to contracts
Leveraging the Cointelegraph network
While the Cointelegraph Consulting division started about a month ago, there is already significant demand from enterprise blockchain vendors wanting to join the network. According to Dain, solution providers have a desire to join Cointelegraph Consulting because it solves a major industry problem, which is connecting clients with vendors quickly and efficiently.
“We are giving vendors access to large enterprises that are eager to work with us based on Cointelegraph’s credibility and reputation in the blockchain space,” said Dain.
Cointelegraph Consulting’s first vendor partner, Insolar, helps businesses adopt ROI-driven blockchain solutions. One of the key benefits behind the company’s technology is the ability to join private or public blockchain networks without running a node, making it more straightforward for enterprises to scale without requiring their vendors or customers to commit any IT infrastructure.
“The Insolar blockchain platform solves both scalability and complexity issues for enterprises,” Peter Fedchenkov, Insolar’s founder and chief revenue officer, told Cointelegraph. “Our network can process over 20,000 transactions per second.”
Fedchenkov also noted that Insolar is used by several enterprise firms and Fortune 500 companies, which view blockchain as a complex technology that typically requires different skill sets and prior knowledge. Insolar counts Microsoft, Oracle, UC Berkeley, AT Kearney and Innosuisse among its partners and customers.
“Companies don’t want to commit to something they don’t understand,” noted Fedchenkov. “Our platform solves this by enabling an average enterprise developer to work with our platform without any prior skill sets.”
However, while Fedchenkov pointed out that enterprises are ready to adopt blockchain technology, there is still the need for a solution that meets rigorous business requirements suitable for commercial deployment. Joining Cointelegraph Consulting will help solve this challenge by connecting Insolar with a number of companies in the blockchain space seeking a solution like theirs.
“We are confident that our partnership with Cointelegraph Consulting will help grow our network in the blockchain space, allowing us to connect with companies that can use our technology,” said Fedchenkov. “With Cointelegraph’s reach, we will pretty much be able to connect with anyone interested in blockchain, giving us an advantage of connecting with the right people at the right time.”
Bringing public blockchains to enterprises
VeChain’s blockchain technology enables Walmart China and its suppliers to garner customer trust by improving food safety, quality and authenticity of product data. Built on the VeChainThor Blockchain in collaboration with PwC, the Walmart China Blockchain Traceability Platform is one of the first major business applications on a public blockchain. This makes it distinct from other food supply chain management solutions like the IBM Food Trust Network built on Hyperledger Fabric, which is a private blockchain network.
"The immutability of a public blockchain, coupled with verifiable information makes our solution really unique,” VeChain’s COO, Kevin Feng, told Cointelegraph. “While most enterprise blockchain solutions are private, like those offered by IBM Blockchain and Hyperledger, we have enterprises use a public blockchain, as this provides for lower transactions costs and better data transparency.”
The VeChain platform allows Walmart China customers to scan products with a smartphone to access the source and geographic location of tracked food products, the travel route a product made to any supermarket, product inspection reports, and more. By the end of 2020, Walmart China's traceability system is expected to have traceable fresh meat account for 50% of the total sales of packaged fresh meat, traceable vegetables will account for 40% of the total sales of packaged vegetables, and traceable seafood will account for 12.5% of total seafood sales.
Feng mentioned that there is massive potential in the collaboration with Cointelegraph Consulting, allowing VeChain’s blockchain solution to reach an even larger market in China:
“We’ve done a lot of work with consulting firms like PwC and Deloitte, which have played a critical role in getting companies like Walmart to understand the potential of blockchain technology. However, Cointelegraph has a deeper involvement in the blockchain space, which is likely to help us gain clients specialized in blockchain seeking a public protocol.”
Like Insolar, VeChain will also support Cointelegraph Consulting by creating use cases and business models to educate companies on the benefits of public blockchains for enterprise adoption.
“We want to push for adoption of public blockchains, as most enterprises believe that private blockchains are a safer choice to implement. By working with Cointelegraph Consulting, we can make this solution more visible to companies interested in learning more,” explained Feng.
An ever-expanding business
While Insolar and VeChain are the first technology firms to partner with Cointelegraph Consulting, Dain expects about 20-30 more service providers to join the network in the coming year.
“We are in the process of negotiation with more technological leaders to join the Cointelegraph Consulting network,” he said. “At the same time, we are reaching out and working with enterprise clients to educate them and deliver solutions of our partners.”
Dain revealed that the company plans to bring a huge enterprise client on during the beginning of next year, noting that there will also be a meetup hosted at Davos 2020 to connect solution providers with potential partners. Cointelegraph Consulting will open a new office in Singapore early next year.