CA summary

Our proposal is a feasibility study that will specifically focus on the use of blockchain for companies that want to remove intermediaries from their value chain and which will allow them to better serve their customers, cut prices and engage their partners.

The resultant whitepaper will set out any gaps in capability between the blockchain capability and business use cases and how they can be resolved.

The whitepaper will be driven by the needs of the use case companies that are already on our client list.

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It is incredibly exciting when technology reveals itself in solutions to problems that businesses were aware of but had no feasible solution to.

Now is one of those moments.

The first step is understand the gap between the capability of technology and the need of ‘business’, and to then close it.

This proposal is one of three feasibility studies that will research real world business use cases in the context of Cardano blockchain capability. Each will result in a blueprint for the steps for blockchain developers to deliver the business needs towards a future proof of concept MVP.

The related proposals are:

Real world smart contract use - https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/400948

Our proposal is to undertake a feasibility study that will produce a whitepaper that will succinctly describe how the Cardano blockchain can facilitate the removal of intermediaries from a company’s value chain.

We expect the whitepaper to produce a blueprint that will be used to create applications that will deliver on this specific use case.

The use case

The use cases that we will reference are supplies by three large UK farming groups and the head of agriculture for a global commercial bank, each of whom are existing clients, and from access to industry associations such as the National Farmers’ Union.

Retailers recognise the value to be captured and shared between themselves and consumers by the removal of the monopolistic retailers from the value chain. ‘Farm to gate’ will lower prices for consumers.

The constraint

There is desire in the use case company to embrace blockchain technology aligned with a clear business case. How the Cardano blockchain can enable the removal of intermediaries from the company’s value chain is not clear.

The solution

Our proposal is a feasibility study that will investigate how the business process needs can be translated into technical process descriptions that can then be assessed by Cardano blockchain developers. Where a gap in need and capability exists, the resultant whitepaper will describe the technical development steps needed to provide the technical capability of the Cardano blockchain to the food and beverage sector of the economy.

The solution that we propose will present a pathway that describes a meaningful real world business use case that has clear impact.

It will achieve this by:

• Understanding the gaps between technical capability of Cardano blockchain to remove intermediaries and real world business needs and how the gaps can be closed.

• Presenting the solution described as a configurable product that can be employed by companies that operate in a value chain that has significant and costly intermediaries.

The solution will:

• Describe a product that supports a business solution

• Increase the number of companies proposing and being exposed to Cardano solutions

• Provide the platform to facilitate the removal of intermediaries

The solution will be communicated through our existing business client community.

• Challenge – identify key technical partners to assist in describing the gap between capability and deliver of the blockchain based solution/s. We will work with technical developers within the Cardano ecosystem.

o Mitigation – Engage with the Catalyst co-ordination team to identify appropriate partners

• Challenge – Describing the solution that delivers the outcomes required by the business use case in terms that will lead to a coherent scope of work for the development phase of the project in the future

o We will partner with developers to learn what technical development needs to occur to technically deliver the solution, and how to describe it in a scope of work

This is a feasibility study to determine the capability of the Cardano blockchain to deliver a specific business use case.

The main deliverable will be the creation of a whitepaper that describes the gaps between technical capability and business need, and how these gaps will be closed. The whitepaper will describe how these actions will enable the crafting of technical scopes of work for future business solutions.

Project roadmap

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOErZ4GQ=/?invite_link_id=497303959694

After voting takes place and funding is successfully secured:

Understanding and articulating the business process use case (all times in duration of activities, not work effort)

· Meet business process owners – 2 days

· Agree requirements of blockchain – 2 days

· Map business processes – 2 days

· Agree process map with process owner – 4 days

· ID links to blockchain – 2 days

Investigate technical feasibility of blockchain technologies to deliver the business process use case

· Write technical description of blockchain requirements – 7 days

· Consultation with blockchain developers – 3 days

· Second round of developer consultation – 3 days

· Blockchain developer response to business process requirements – 2 days

Milestone – receive blockchain developer report

Writing of a whitepaper and development pathway to deliver the blockchain technologies to deliver the business process use case

· Map blockchain capability to business needs – 8 days

· Consultation with blockchain developers – 4 days

· Develop blueprint plan to close capability gaps – 2 days

· Whitepaper authoring – 4 days

Overall, the project will have a duration of about 7 weeks dependent on the availability of participants.

The total cost of this proposal is US$37,180

The cost rates that we have estimated are:

· Edify team – US$195/hr

· Blockchain developers – US$130/hr

Understanding and articulating the business process use case – US$14,040

· Edify team – 52 hours – US$14,040

Investigate the technical feasibility of blockchain technologies to deliver the business process use case – US$9,100

· Edify team – 36 hours – US$7,020

· Developers – 16 hours – US$2,080

Writing of a whitepaper and development pathway to deliver the blockchain technologies to deliver the business process use case – US$14,040

· Edify team – 36 hours – US$12,480

· Developers – 16 hours – US$1,560

Harry Hellyer

Harry will ensure that the requirements of the companies providing the use case/s will be met, and will liaise with the executive leadership of each company to ensure that they have a clear expectation of the capability of the Cardano ecosystem.

NED, and chairman, executive and business coach specialising in full value-based impact innovation programmes for enterprises and organisations.

Founding partner of 50th Generation – one of the UK's first Social Business Generational Accelerators – 2014-2018

Credited for supporting the development of the NHS's first Sustainable Development Vision and Strategy programme.

Coached Fellows on the Cambridge University, Programme for Sustainable Development,

Coached Fellows and Lectured for the Cambridge University, Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning - Social Enterprise

VP and director of strategy, marketing strategy and business development for several global IT, media and telecoms companies.

Alan Casey

Alan is a specialist in technology – business process integration. He will lead the investigation into the needs of the use cases, their interpretation in technical scopes of work and the drafting of the resultant whitepaper.

Manager of a sovereign national grid control centre during a period of technological and cultural change.

Founder and consultant in an organisational effectiveness measurement system deployed into a global advertising and marketing communications network.

Founder of a conversational AI company creating systems that evaluate and improve competence in key organisational skills.

Member of the Edify Community.

Fellow of the RSA.

Mark Constable

25 years+ working in small business as a Leader, Founder, consultant and coach - Supporting impact focused business leaders in building future fit organisations

Proven track record of helping clients in building high value, high performing organisations focused equally on both wealth and wellbeing.

Relevant Experience:

· Development and delivery of high impact leadership programmes for fast growth businesses.

· Launched a business line providing specialised business development training to bid management and sales teams globally.

Member of the Edify Community.

Jon Arnett

Background in Operations and Project Management with startups, small businesses and social enterprises.

Founder of a coaching and consulting business supporting small businesses and startups.

Experience in coaching, facilitation, workshopping and programme delivery (online and in person)

Won multiple EU funded L&D contracts, delivering workshops on entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and leadership to diverse stakeholders.

Member of the Edify Community.

Cardano blockchain developers

We will be partnering with recognised experts in the Cardano community on this project. We will collaboratively investigate the requirements of the business case and how they can be met by the Cardano blockchain capability.

We will create and deploy and project plan overseen by a programme manager. The plan will have key milestones.

An overview of the plan is attached to this proposal.

‘Done’ for this project will be the publication of the whitepaper as described above.

It will describe a pathway towards the development of innovative products and services based on the Cardano blockchain.

The specific business use case will describe how the eventual product will enable a previously unattainable level of disintermediation that will support greater value for consumers.

This is a new project.