“Zebra Technologies on why it is mission critical for enterprises to adopt blockchain”-Mr Deep Agarwal, Regional Sales Director – Indian Sub-Continent, Zebra Technologies

Nisha Harshwal:-Why has it become mission-critical for enterprises to master their data ownership pertaining to usage rights, data privacy and security?

Mr.Deep Agarwal :-As customers invest to increase the efficiency of their resources, they are asking for end-to-end visibility of the entire value-chain and chain of custody. They are also asking for this visibility to be built on a common IoT platform and architecture.

Business dynamics:

• Understanding the data being collected and its potential for their business

• Preparing for possible market shifts

• Dealing with security and privacy challenges generated by the Internet of Things (IoT) and overall growth in data utilization and technology within the worker and consumer environments

Nisha Harshwal:-How is Zebra bolstering its play in this regard?

Mr.Deep Agarwal :-Zebra has launched the Zebra Savanna Platform, our data intelligence platform, which analyzes collected data to give more complete visibility into our customers’ businesses, and digitally transforms the way they can work. A key tenet of the Zebra Savanna Platform is Zebra Data Services -powered by Savanna, a collection of cloud accessible APIs as products for developers to help them accelerate time-to-market with advanced capabilities in their software and to help them leverage the massive data sets generated by Zebra devices across a multitude of workflows and environments. 

Nisha Harshwal:-Can you share more details about Savanna and how it integrates blockchain?

Mr.Deep Agarwal :-APIs are not new to Zebra, but in the instance of Zebra Data Services, APIs are a product of hardware and sensor data collected at the point of work that drives predictive insights into a business ecosystem.

Zebra’s Savanna collects and analyzes data to develop and create insights at the edge, using APIs which have created a more open architecture toolset for developers and business innovators to utilize and enhance current applications, or allow them to develop new applications.  These APIs currently reside on Zebra’s Developer Portal (http://developer.zebra.com/). Several APIs are currently available on the Developer Portal and more APIs will be available in the future. One of the cornerstone APIs of Zebra Data Services is Blockchain Traceability, which can provide a seamless tracking of assets from creation to consumption to solve for challenges around counterfeit goods, food safety and overall origin of goods and assets.

Nisha Harshwal:-How will blockchain empower the enterprise space?

Mr.Deep Agarwal :-Over the past few years, the value of blockchain in the enterprise space has been explored with proof of concepts. Though, it has been used in areas such as gem tracking and mining for longer periods of time. As the strain of e-commerce, a growing global supply chain and a need for more audit and compliance have all grown, so has the need to drive automation and trust in faster ways across multiple sectors. Blockchain has emerged as a tool that can help facilitate digital trust and immutable records of events and data. With a need to automate trust, authentication and authorization, blockchain can be used as part of a broader technology solution to achieve those outcomes. In enterprise environments, blockchain’s value comes from its ability to capture an event at the edge and register that event to the distributed ledger that’s used to search historical records during compliance audits, or authenticity of goods requests and other business reviews. However, if you take an ecosystem approach and combine blockchain with Internet of Things (IoT) or Industrial IoT (IIoT) technologies, you can drive more transparency into supply chain management. You also gain the ability to democratize data in a trusted, secure manner amongst a multitude of cross-functional stakeholders in order to trade data and drive further value into managing a supply chain from origin to consumer. Even better, if enterprises were to capture an event at the edge via an RFID read event, then they can send that event to the cloud for automatic registration to the blockchain without needing any integration into back-end systems.

Nisha Harshwal:-Which supply chain stakeholders can realize benefits from blockchain?

Mr.Deep Agarwal :-

• Pharmaceutical manufacturers – Anti-counterfeit goods; origin of ingredients and allergens

• Bio-pharmaceutical manufacturers and supply chain stakeholders – Temperature-sensitive bio-pharmaceuticals and vaccines

• Manufacturers of goods – Anti-counterfeit goods

• Food manufacturers – Food safety with temperature-sensitive foods; origin of ingredients and allergens

• Any relationship where immutable and event-driven “trust” needs to be established

• Any relationship where there is a way to share specific data in a secure and democratized way

Over the next 1-5 years, Zebra expects that there will be an abundance of legislation around food and drug safety compliance in order to secure supply chains and increase transparency and safety for the end consumer.  Blockchain will be a key pillar of the ecosystem that will help companies achieve these objectives. It will enable users to get answers to transactional inquiries in minutes and days versus months or years depending upon their existing operating environment or blockchain (and broader technology) approach.