Target, who is the eighth largest retailer in the USA, has been working with Hyperledger, IBM, and Bitwise to use Blockchain technology, initially to help it improve its supply chain logistics for a number of its paper products.

Target is also looking at using Hyperledger as it is used by Cargill, who is one of Target’s main food suppliers. In a recent blog, Joel Crabb, at Target said “Working directly with one of our largest food suppliers will allow Target and all other participants to learn from one another as blockchain technologies mature. This also gives us an instant use case in determining which data to share and how to govern a multi-enterprise, blockchain-backed distributed ledger.”

Once again, as we have seen in the luxury goods sector with LVMH and the shipping sector with Tradelens, Target is looking to collaborate with suppliers and other parties enabling them to all share their experience and knowledge. This style of “collaborative capitalism”, where independent organisations are actively engaging with each other and sharing information and knowledge, is intended to create a stronger, more robust and transparent solution which will help the market and not just the interests of one organisation. This collaborative style is well summarised by Crabb: “Maturity in this space will take time, but we’ll only get there when enterprise partners like Target and Cargill dive in together.”

Meanwhile, the third largest retail store in Russia, Dixy, is using Blockchain technology to help it develop an open-trade finance platform, called Factorin. This platform is designed to enable it to engage with factoring firms and help Dixy’s cash-flow management. The Factorin platform has been under trial for a few months and has already processed over 10,000 transactions. It has been developed to help improve efficiency, cut out human errors and speed up payments due to small and medium-sized business - which are estimated in Russia to be valued at $45 billion.