KPMG has launched KPMG Origins in Australia, China and Japan. KPMG Origins is a blockchain-based ‘track and trace’ platform to support multiple industries – most especially agriculture, resources, manufacturing and financial services.
Ken Reid, ASPAC Head of Advisory and Partner, KPMG Australia commented: “The supply chains of the 21st century are faster, more interconnected, and require sharing greater amounts of data than ever before. From agriculture to financial services, the complexity of supply chain ecosystems creates operational risks, reconciliation challenges as well as safety concerns. KPMG Origins’ goal is to solve these problems by providing independent third-party verification and certification of data and processes.”
Digital supply chains – KPMG Origins
KPMG developed KPMG Origins to:
- enable global trade
- provide a competitive edge for Australian industries to demonstrate the provenance of their product internationally.
The roll-out of the platform, which follows pilot implementations in Australia, China and Japan, brings together a number of emerging technologies. These include:
- blockchain
- Internet of Things (IoT) sensors
- data
- analytics tools.
The objective is to provide transparency and traceability to trading partners across complex industries and their supply chains. In effect, KPMG Origins enables trading partners to:
- communicate unique product information across supply chains
- involve end users (for example, buyers and sellers)
- reduce operational complexities.
Laszlo Peter, KPMG Head of Blockchain Services for Asia Pacific said: “KPMG Origins is the result of several successful initial trials with clients to understand industry pain and trust points, map incentive structures, and create a platform to add real value. To move beyond the hype, it is necessary to introduce complex technology across a diverse set of corporate stakeholders.
“The platform is based upon in-depth work across highly specialised areas, as well as collaboration across multiple jurisdictions to deliver a multi-lingual, standards and taxonomy driven platform that accelerates the development of distributed ecosystems.”
Trialing KPMG Origins
A number of organisations are trialling the KPMG Origins platform. They include:
- CANEGROWERS, the peak body for Queensland’s sugarcane growers
- SunRice, one of Australia’s largest food exporters
- Mitchell Wines, a major riesling producer.
CANEGROWERS is working with KPMG to scope the application of blockchain as a way to:
- demonstrate the sustainability credentials of sugar produced in Queensland
- drive an improved return to growers which recognises environmental sustainability practices.
CANEGROWERS Senior Manager – Membership Engagement & Innovation, Matt Kealley said: “There is increasing demand on growers to demonstrate their sustainability practices, yet there is no way for them to be recognised or rewarded for their investment. In CANEGROWERS view, if there’s demand for sustainable sugar, surely there’s some value there.
“A blockchain solution, such as KPMG Origins, could provide a platform which will enable end-users to capture the sustainability credentials of the product directly from the grower to customer. By working together as an industry to explore cutting-edge tech such as blockchain, we are exploring ways to get value back to growers and the Queensland sugar industry.”
Enterprise Times: what does this mean
The roll out of KPMG Origins is happening across the Asia Pacific region – as part of KPMG’s investment in blockchain capabilities. As might be expected, these range from consulting advice to technology delivery amd include build and service operations.
What is less clear is how KPMG Origins as a platform is different from major supply chain initiatives – like Marco Polo – or integrated solutions like IBM’s Sterling Supply Chain Suite. Possibly the differentiation is in the depth of services and capabilities KPMG can focus on a client. The question is whether this is any different to what other supply chain platforms promote. What, is clear, however, is the competition in the supply chain arena is heating up – with many choices for enterprises.
