Consumers and businesses are pushing toward an increasingly digital world. When businesses enter this evolving landscape, it’s critical they offer today’s consumers the seamless digital experiences they expect. Unibright aims to offer such an experience with the Unibright Framework. The Framework has 9 templates for different use-cases fully developed as of now, and many more to come. In this article, the focus will be on the Multi Party Approval Template — helping with the integration of suppliers’ approval processes. In the world of today, the trend in business processes is without a doubt moving away from slow and manual methods, towards automation and centralization. Automating your business processes has a number of benefits: completing tasks faster, increased visibility among your organisation, standardizing outputs, reducing errors, and lowering costs. Although automation is not something new and has helped countless companies become more efficient and productive, a promising change can be seen on the horizon. In particular, blockchain workflow automation can assist organizations that rely heavily on transactions and document-based processes. With the integration of blockchain, these companies can take the next step in their digital transformation.

You might wonder why is blockchain so instrumental for the approval processes within a business? Blockchain is not crucial for workflow automation, it however brings many benefits:

Secure Transaction : The blockchain is both distributed across multiple systems and immutable, which means that no one can alter the blockchain alone.

: The blockchain is both distributed across multiple systems and immutable, which means that no one can alter the blockchain alone. Increased Data Integrity : Blockchain networks are self-auditing, since the network verifies the data every ten minutes. All parties are immediately made aware of changes and can access the data history.

: Blockchain networks are self-auditing, since the network verifies the data every ten minutes. All parties are immediately made aware of changes and can access the data history. Increased Transparency & Accessibility : All records in the blockchain are shared and publicly accessible among all nodes in the network.

: All records in the blockchain are shared and publicly accessible among all nodes in the network. Compliance is Greatly Improved : Because records in the blockchain cannot be modified once saved, regulators can easily use this audit trail to verify compliance.

: Because records in the blockchain cannot be modified once saved, regulators can easily use this audit trail to verify compliance. Fraud is Completely Eliminated : The blocks in the blockchain are linked to each other and secured using cryptography, making them almost impossible to falsify.

: The blocks in the blockchain are linked to each other and secured using cryptography, making them almost impossible to falsify. Transaction Costs Decrease Dramatically: Using the blockchain removes the need for third-party intermediaries to handle transactions, charging an overhead fee in the process.

Linking business process management (BPM) and blockchain technology is done through smart contracts. A smart contract can be thought of as an automated middleman that handles the transaction between two companies. These smart contracts are “self-executing” software protocols that help people exchange any information of value. The contract’s dos and don’t are coded into the program itself. Smart contracts are linked with blockchain technology, and they can be approved or rejected based on the information verified by the blockchain.

Smart contracts can be used together with BPM software in order to integrate the contracts in existing business processes. For example, with the Unibright Framework process maps can be used to create and visualise the desired flow of smart contracts at important touch points throughout the company’s workflow. The users can also access raw data on the Framework, which would help find bottlenecks where a smart contract does not run as expected. The BPM software can then send push notifications to ask for approval, rejection, and/or when contracts are about to expire and they need rejuvenation. Furthermore, on the Multi Party Approval template allows users to extract information from the smart contracts and use it in other processes, such as triggering an event. Data from other processes can also be brought into the smart contract.

The Multi Party Approval Template brings efficiency and allows companies to work together even though their legacy systems do not allows such a luxury at the moment. To exemplify, imagine your company builds cars and the car-parts need to be ordered from several suppliers who are situated in several countries. Your company might have a supply chain that works with several different parties involved and everything is delivered just in time. These parties might use internally different softwares or email approvals or anything else that is company-specific. With the Unibright Framework’s Multi Party Approval Template, these internal characteristics would be connected, and still though everyone uses a different software in its specific company, all the parties involved will be connected, and will be able to see the approval process and time stamps of the car part orders/deliveries on the blockchain. Moreover, our solution creates a digital trail of transactions which can be stored as a Blockchain that is practically impossible to falsify, making audits much smoother. Auditing and compliance processes will become faster and more efficient, transferring the benefits of blockchain technology to the customer in the long-run.

To further clarify how the Multi Party Approval template benefits all stakeholders we will focus on the way insurance companies settle and handle claims. Insurance companies still send a physical paper check when issuing payments to their customers. Insurance claim checks are often payable to two or more payees. The current inconvenience of multi-party checks are wide-known in the insurance industry. At least two parties need to have physical possession of the check in order for them to claim it, and most of the time all parties need to be physically present at the bank in order to deposit it. Not only does this take time, but it’s also very inconvenient. Using Unibright’s Framework, a Multi Party Process involving all the stakeholders involved in the disbursement of the insurance money can be created. Below we have visualised how such a process would look like:

Blockchain technology is one of the major ways that automation and business process management will evolve in the near future. Unibright is here to offer use-case-specific solutions such as the Multi Party Approval Template, in order to allow companies capitalise on the advantages of blockchain without hiring expensive developers and halting current business processes.