Introduction
Managing a company or business in the most optimal way is something very challenging that not only requires several people taking care of their responsibilities, but often it is also necessary to have digital tools capable of facilitating such management.
Nowadays, due to the digital era in which we are living, it is quite normal to see companies both large and small, making use of a resource planning system that allows them to have all of their operations and important information in order. When a company competes in the market, it needs to reach the highest possible level of efficiency. The ultimate goal in doing so is getting clients and serving them in a satisfactory manner. Only this way can the success of the company be sustained in the years to come.
For this reason, having a good enterprise resource planning platform is vital for any company to achieve acceptable levels of competitiveness.
However, we all know the technology sector is always in a dynamic of constant innovation, with new solutions and ideas being always in development, often causing disruptions that can force previously established paradigms to be modified.
Such is the case of blockchain technology, which in recent years has become the center of attention for many people, not only because of the aggressive price movements from cryptocurrencies, but also because of the new possibilities that this technology offers thanks to its new development model, which unlike the typical centralization that characterizes traditional developments, is a model that has decentralization as a principle, and therefore, the empowerment of the community of users and developers as a result.
Today we will learn about a project that is developing an enterprise resource planning platform based on blockchain technology. The team behind this project is known as Zygot and in the next few paragraphs, we will be exploring the features of their platform and the advantages they plan to offer.
What is Zygot?
Zygot is a team of professionals with many years of experience in the development of platforms for enterprise uses. This has allowed them to recognize all the problems that exist with the ERP platforms used today. Thanks to the emergence of blockchain technology and the benefits it offers, they have identified an opportunity to develop a new platform capable of offering a solution that is superior to everything created so far. The platform that this team is developing is known as ZERP. But before exploring its features, I consider it is necessary to clarify the meaning of the term ERP:
"ERP" stands for enterprise resource planning. It refers to a suite of software that organizations use to manage day-to-day business activities, such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management and compliance, and supply chain operations. Source
What is ZERP?
ZERP is a platform that as its name suggests, is designed to optimize the management of enterprise resources, both for large organizations with a presence in multiple countries, as well as small organizations that only operate locally in a single country.
This platform was developed with its own open source protocol and it is designed to work with the EOS blockchain, which allows it to make use of smart contracts, one of the most important innovations within the blockchain industry.
It has a modular design, which means that it has different functionalities that can be added or removed without affecting the platform’s general performance. Besides, the smart contracts can be used to streamline the management of different modules depending on the needs of the particular client.
In addition, the automation facilitated by these smart contracts allows this tool to have greater versatility, resulting in a reduction in the maintenance costs of the system.
The potential impact of blockchain technology in ERP platforms
Leveraging the advantages offered by blockchain technology can allow a platform to have superior qualities than those offered by competitors using traditional technology. The most significant impacts are related to the security and integrity of the information that is handled by the system.
A blockchain can guarantee the data has not been tampered with because all records are securely timed and protected by the globally distributed nodes that keep the network active. Another benefit of blockchain technology is the possibility of encrypting the information to further obstruct any malicious user who tries to hack into the system.
In order to avoid any bottleneck that may affect the scalability of the platform, the EOS blockchain is designed to easily scale operations and transactions without suffering from any collapse, so ZERP should have no problem as the number of clients begins to increase.
ZERP’s development works on a decentralized way
One of the main characteristics of the blockchain industry and all the projects that use this technology is having decentralization as a strategy to improve the security and integrity of the information. Because of this, the Zygot team came up with the innovative idea of expanding this principle and applying it to the development field.
The development of ZERP does not come only from a single team of developers, but it is carried out in a decentralized manner. This means that multiple development teams can compete with each other to gain recognition from users by providing them with the interoperable applications that are developed. ZERP’s platform will be a place where third parties can develop any type of application and functionality that is demanded. This means that ZERP is effectively the first decentralized market for ERP functionalities available in EOS.
This benefits the developers because it simplifies the process of launching their applications and gaining clients thanks to the facilities provided by ZERP. When it comes to the users, it allows them to have faster access to the latest innovations that are released in the market.
Understanding the issues with current ERP platforms and the solutions that ZERP can provide
One of the main problems that affect the clients of traditional ERP platforms is the excessive costs involved in acquiring a license for such software, especially if it is necessary to develop customized modifications for the client in question. These high costs may even be prohibitive for small companies that operate locally.
Given the fact the developers for the ZERP platform will compete with each other thanks to the decentralized way in which this platform was designed, this will allow the options with the best cost-quality balance to be those that have the best recognition by the market. This is something that’s only possible due to the open source nature with which this project was designed. Without open source code, it would be impossible for other developers to modify or design functionalities that are natively interoperable with all the other ZERP developments.
Another problem affecting this niche is that solutions tend to be inflexible, instead of adapting the software to the client, it is the client who often has to adapt to the software.
Fortunately, in the case of ZERP, there will be various development teams serving every kind of need that clients may have. These teams will develop their applications to work in a modular and interoperable way with other tools that are also developed to be used with this platform. All of this will be available in the ZERP’s digital marketplace. This way, customers can have their own enterprise resource planning platform fully adapted to their needs and working in a stable and secure manner.
Finally, a complication that negatively affects the experience with traditional ERP platforms is that technology advances extremely fast, and the development team behind these platforms might not always be able to match new and emerging demands.
This problem won’t affect ZERP because as previously mentioned, this platform is designed to work as a decentralized platform with its own free marketplace where customers can inform about their needs, and developers compete to satisfy these potential customers. Because the development teams will be independent of each other (decentralized development), it is expected that there will always be an available team to design some functionality according to the specifications and needs that arise as the industry naturally progresses.
Conclusion
In this article, various aspects of Zygot and its enterprise resource planning platform known as ZERP were explained, as well as the benefits of using blockchain technology in this type of platform and some specific aspects were also detailed where ZERP offers benefits superior to those offered by its traditional competitors.
For more information about this project, feel free to check the following links and websites:
Website: https://zygot.io/technology
Whitepaper: https://zygot.io/data/whitepaper.pdf
Medium: https://medium.com/@zygoterp
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Zygot_io
Telegram: https://t.me/ZygotERP
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zygot
DISCLAIMER
This is not financial advice, nor a guarantee or promise in regards to any result that may be obtained from using the above content. The information provided here is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered as financial and/or investment advice. No person should make any kind of financial decision without first consulting their own financial adviser and/or conducting their own research and due diligence.