Approach

1. Discover

   Spot a big, ambitious, challenge or opportunity in your industry
   
   We start assessing whether a blockchain is even needed. Is there blockchain-fit? Blockchain-fit often lends itself to issues of (lack of) sharing, organizing and validating data between multiple parties.
   
   The goal is to find or validate a big, ambitious, challenge or opportunity that can achieve buy-in from multiple parties. For instance, undue stress of documentation and verification, complex international workflows, a dependency on intermediators between businesses, lengthy paper trails or general inefficiencies in the flow of goods and services. To aid the search we apply a structed problem methodology to uncover and validate the challenge at hand.
   
   

   2 - 4 weeks

2. Design

   Make the value of shared blockchain solution tangible
   
   In this phase multiple workshops are undertaken with relevant actors – sometimes bringing critical suppliers, competitors and public institutions into the room. Together different ideas, rough sketches, prototypes are developed to envision the future solution. And the business value it brings. While collaborating on a shared beneficial solution, we help shape an emerging business consortium of participants.

   We evaluated the solution to ensure a positive business case drives the transformation forward. This includes rough cost estimations of the full technical implementation. In this phase it is evaluated once more if blockchain is the ideal technology choice or a traditional technology stack can be applied more effectively.
   
   

   2 - 6 weeks

3. Build PoC

   Develop a rudimentary technical prototype to validate the solution
   
   At this point the business value of the blockchain solution is clear. On this basis the high-level technical specifications are developed, components in the technology stack are defined and overview of dataflow with existing legacy systems is documented.

   The purpose of the PoC is to ensure the technical blockchain infrastructure is viable and feasible for the identified solution. In this process multiple blockchain platforms are evaluated for best match with the requirements for the desired solution. Deloitte is blockchain technology agnostic. This means we are impartial technical advisors on the, now many, enterprise-ready blockchain platforms.
   
   

   4 - 6 weeks

4. Expand ecosystem & Assess

   Agree on how to move forward, together
   
   When blockchain technology has been found to be the necessary technology choice, the business participants can focus on how the consortium shall be governed. The consortium should consist of a handful of organizations, ready to move forward and fund the solutions technical development.

   Before then, agreement should be reached on governance model, legal structure, intellectual property ownership, cost-sharing and decision-making, risk management, managing new entrants entering or exiting the platform, vendor selection process, etc. Deloitte can assist with wide expertise from all functions to this end.
   
   

   2 – 6 months

5. Build & Commercialize

   Built, launch and reap the benefits
   
   Following the development and launch of the solution, the next steps involve monitoring and analyzing its value. Attain knowledge as to what end it makes sense to scale the solution horizontally, adding more competitors, similar with those already in the consortium. Or whether the solution can be scaled vertically by going deeper in the digitization of business processes and workflows in the sector by added new type of organizations to the consortium. This requires an understanding of how participants reap value from the newly digitized, standardized, processes and data that flows within the sector.
   
   

   4 – 12 months