Streamlining Business Operations with Smart Contracts
By: Clay Devlin
Tags: Business, Smart Contracts, Blockchain, Automation, Ethereum

This is the first in a series of articles outlining how Bountium is creating a framework for programmable businesses

Blockchain has unlocked the possibility of new financial relationships by introducing programmable money to the world, enabling automatically placed transactions without the need for trust between parties. While there is amazing progress being made with this technology, we believe that one strong use case is being overlooked: streamlining business operations.

We first began considering this after our own frustrations performing freelance software development — late payments and nebulous expectations made for less-than-ideal business relationships. We knew there was technology to address these issues — new tools like smart contracts that could revolutionise the antiquated system of trustful business operations; and so, we set out to deliver this solution from theory to practice.

Just as a public ledger disintermediates the need for trust in a central bank to operate a currency, we began thinking about how a public ledger of supply orders could disintermediate the trust that is inherent in business relationships. Owning and operating a business requires trust in your co-owners as well as in each supplier’s performance, from manufacturing of a product to its delivery.

The pain of these trusted relationships has been dismissed as an unavoidable part of business operations for years. Business owners have had to sacrifice extra time and money towards establishing relationships with partners, managing payments for these relationships, and insuring themselves against any counterparty risk. The potential of the global economy has been held back by businesses operating within this model.

At Bountium, we’re changing that by building a smart-contract-powered operating system for your business; transforming traditional business relationships built on hope and promises into automatable, trustless systems. Business owners are empowered to simplify the administration of their products, capital, and equity by representing their business as a DAO. This allows for remote collaboration and simplified business management for individuals and organizations of all kinds.

Today, businesses receive and place product orders via phone, email, or third-party administered web storefront, and manually place corresponding inventory management actions to fulfill them. This manual process is costly and can lead to errors that slow down the distribution cycle. Bountium enables automatic inventory management by giving business owners the ability to configure the appropriate conditions under which their business’ DAO places a repeat inventory order.

We’ve already built the tools for users to leverage self-sovereign equity ownership, automated dividend payment, and passive inventory management. Reliance on intermediaries for distribution and trust for equity administration can be removed, yielding cost reductions from risk minimization. The ability to automate distribution systems enables business owners to focus their time and energy on strategy and marketing rather than placing new supply orders.

Our next step is to upgrade this automated distribution system to build in quality assurance. Now that smart contracts can place and receive supply orders for businesses, we can objectively define expectations for orders within their respective smart contracts. The contract will then place the payment for that order into an escrow, ensuring that businesses only pay out once the fulfillment of their order requirements has been verified. If you’d like to take a deep dive into how assessment can work in Bountium, learn more here.

Businesses currently find suppliers of goods and services through word-of-mouth referrals, and establish inflexible supply chains limited by existing social networks. Managing supplier relationships through objectively defined expectations can invert the supplier discovery process to let good suppliers come to you. Bountum is unlocking an open, meritocratic marketplace for businesses’ needs, leading to more cost-efficient supply ordering and outsourcing. Soon, businesses globally will be able to interact without needing to trust each other, and we’re excited to create that future.

Bountium is building the platform for programming your business; simplifying out-dated management and supply processes through verifiable and auditable smart contracts.

Join the conversation here to stay updated on Bountium and participate in the community building an open source framework for the future of commerce.

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We’re actively seeking testers to run the world’s first Smart Contract Powered Businesses — reach out to clay@bountium.org to take us one step closer to the future of commerce.