Professional services network KPMG in China, Australia and Japan has launched Origins, a blockchain-based track-and-trace platform to support industries including agriculture, resources, manufacturing and financial services.
 
The platform has been developed to enable global trade. It brings together a number of emerging technologies including blockchain and IoT, as well as data and analytics tools to provide transparency and traceability to trading partners across complex industries. KPMG Origins allows these trading partners to communicate unique product information across their supply chains, and in particular to end users, while reducing operational complexities.
 
“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,” said Laszlo Peter, KPMG head of blockchain services for Asia Pacific. “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.”
 
The rollout of the platform follows pilot implementations with clients across China, Australia and Japan.
 
“In China, the KPMG Origins proposition – protection of product authenticity and better insights into supply and distribution chains – is attracting a lot of attention,” said Adam Stuckert, blockchain lead for KPMG China. “The local team is engaging with major producers of premium beverages as well as pharmaceutical devices and medicine. Combining IoT data with AI vision and the ability to store the results on an auditable, tamper-proof, single source of truth is a very strong value proposition for those industry leaders.”
 
Organisations trialling the Origins platform include Canegrowers in Australia, the peak body for Queensland’s sugarcane growers, which is working with KPMG to scope the application of blockchain as a way to demonstrate the sustainability credentials of sugar produced in Queensland and to drive a return to growers in recognition of their environmental sustainability practices.
 
“The supply chains of the 21st century are faster, more interconnected, and require sharing greater amounts of data than ever before,” said Ken Reid, head of advisory at KPMG Australia. “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.”
 
Origins is being rolled out across Asia Pacific as part of the regional firms’ broader investment in blockchain capability ranging from consulting advice to technology delivery, build and service operation.
 
“The proposition of KPMG Origins provides a significant opportunity for organisations to explore the future of distributed economies and assess the transformation needed to enable new value in the traceability of supply chains,” said Tim Denley, board member of KPMG Ignition Tokyo. “With increasing scrutiny over the quality of goods and factors such as sustainability, ecological impact and consumer safety, all companies will need to gain new insights into the details of the supply chain across a growing number of players.”
 
KPMG is a global network of professional services firms providing audit, tax and advisory services. It operates in 153 countries and territories and has 200,000 people working in member firms around the world.