The blockchain, often associated with cryptocurrencies, has long been considered a secure database for businesses. Everything indicates that its adoption for this purpose is on the rise. Some dismissed the hype surrounding blockchain a few years ago, but many large companies have finally put it into production.
Let’s take the example of the supply chain. Avery Dennison uses blockchain to provide a cloud services offering that provides supply chain services to some large consumer goods companies and their customers. According to Neil Hay, market development manager for Avery Dennison’s atma.io division, which provides SaaS-based supply chain services, the benefit lies not only in the efficiency of blockchain and security, but also in its general transparency.
The advantage of the blockchain is that it allows “the traceability of the supply chains, a better understanding of the products and what makes them up” explains Neil Hay to the Blockchain Journal during the recent World Economic Forum. This extends to the quality of the materials, the origin of the manufacture and the impact on the environment. “As the product moves through the supply chain, we give immutability and trust to the consumer and have that auditability, traceability and transparency that comes with a blockchain.”
Increasing demand
This verifiability has been lacking in supply chains, argues Neil Hay. “We don’t have to look very far to see examples of companies that believed what was happening upstream in their supply chain was true, that the things they reported, they fully believed. But the possibility of having this element of traceability verifiable, of transmitting to the customer the trust that one has in a single element, this is what the interest of the blockchain does for us”.
Perhaps the industry now understands that blockchain can open up business opportunities in a networked economy. A recent report even identifies blockchain as the most in-demand IT skill over the past year, outpacing typically popular skills like cybersecurity in terms of growth. The most popular skill is still the perennial favorite, JavaScript.
This study, published by DevSkiller, an IT skills assessment platform, finds that demand for blockchain skills increased by 552% in 2022. “Interest in blockchain is on the rise likely due to its enhanced security, greater transparency and its instant traceability,” argue the report’s authors. The report’s findings are based on 209,249 coding tests sent by the DevSkiller platform to candidates from 54 countries.
“Last year, we received more new customer inquiries than ever before for blockchain and low-code and no-code technologies,” the survey report authors add.
When analyzing the blockchain-related IT skill set, Solidity was the most commonly tested skill, with a 44% share of the number of skill assessments sent to candidates and employees. It is ahead of Hardhat (22%) and Smart Contracts (15%) who occupy the top three spots respectively.
Source: ZDNet.com