Sébastien Bourguignon, Margo Group: "The Average Person Should Never Have to Hear About Blockchain"

You've heard a lot about blockchain, but you still only have a few abstract — or frankly nebulous — notions about it? Breathe easy, you're in good hands! We asked Sébastien Bourguignon, VP & Lead Digital Influencer at Margo Group, what his key word for digital transformation would be. Without hesitation, he chose "blockchain" — and explains it to us with remarkable clarity. What is well conceived is clearly stated, and the words to express it come easily, as the saying goes.

You chose "blockchain" as your key word for digital transformation. Why is this word so important to you today?

Sébastien Bourguignon: When we talk about blockchain, we often associate its transformative potential with what TCP/IP brought in the 1970s. TCP/IP is the underlying protocol of the Internet — the ability to send emails, browse web pages, shop online, use apps on a mobile phone or play online games on a console: all of these capabilities exist only because of a protocol developed over 40 years ago. Its inventors certainly never imagined everything it would make possible decades later. Well, with blockchain, we're at exactly the same stage. This emerging technology carries within it the seeds of new opportunities that we struggle to project today. In fact, the basic reflex when discovering blockchain is to imagine things we already do today and try to insert blockchain into them — whereas the real disruptions we'll experience tomorrow, thanks to blockchain, are almost certainly not yet in anyone's mind.

Just look at Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies more broadly: they allow two parties at opposite ends of the world to exchange value in minutes, without relying on a trusted third party. Try doing the same thing with the current banking system. If you want to transfer money to a friend on the other side of the planet, the bank will likely take several days, provided it's to an authorised country, will ask you to justify why you're making the transfer, to whom — and will certainly charge hefty fees. All of this is already completely transformed with Bitcoin. It's easy to see that there are still plenty of innovations possible with the underlying technology behind Bitcoin — blockchain.

Many people still struggle to understand blockchain and its implications. What is your own definition?

Sébastien Bourguignon: For my part, my simple and comprehensive definition of blockchain is "a distributed and decentralised database in which everyone can write and read what is written, no one can modify or delete data, it is completely secure and has no central controlling or regulatory body."

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The average person should never have to hear about blockchain — just as no one ever hears about TCP/IP when using a computer or smartphone. Blockchain should be a foundation, a bedrock, for a new generation of applications.

What are, in your view, the best examples of blockchain use cases today?

Sébastien Bourguignon: If we set aside cryptocurrencies — clearly the "killer" use case of blockchain — there are hundreds of others that are available and functional today.

Here are three very different ones, highly representative of what blockchain can do:

• AXA created a new form of fully automated insurance contract that cannot be altered — to the benefit of the client, who is instantly reimbursed in the event of a delayed or cancelled flight. For anyone who has tried claiming in this situation with a traditional insurer, you'll know the insurer typically puts up countless obstacles, often in bad faith. With Fizzy, this new insurance product, the contract between the policyholder and the insurer is recorded on the blockchain and triggers automatically without any human intervention as soon as your flight is delayed. This is called parametric insurance, and it is only made possible by blockchain.
• Everledger, a startup specialising in diamonds, provides a certificate containing unique information about each stone you purchase — its cut, colour, shape, provenance… When you buy a diamond, it comes with its digital certificate recorded on the blockchain, proving its authenticity. If you resell it, you must pass on the digital certificate to the new buyer. If at any point in the chain of transactions, that diamond appears for sale without its digital certificate, you're looking at either a counterfeit or a stolen stone. Yet another use case that is virtually impossible to replicate without blockchain.
• Brave is a next-generation browser that allows users to choose the ads they see and to be compensated by advertisers when an ad is displayed to them. In this model, the use of your personal data by the advertising network enables you to earn money — quite the twist in the era of all-powerful GAFAM and GDPR.

Do you think companies' digitalisation necessarily involves implementing blockchain?

Sébastien Bourguignon: The answer is definitively "NO" — and this is actually a bias we're seeing emerge in recent months. Just as there was a time when having a website, a mobile app or a Big Data infrastructure was considered an absolute marketing must — regardless of real use cases — it has become fashionable to add blockchain where it isn't needed, to please a CEO or an innovation chief in search of recognition.

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Blockchain only makes sense in certain use cases that are now well-identified — use cases for which you are prepared to take on the constraints and challenges that come with it. For any other situation, a simple application with a centralised database will most often deliver the same level of service.

Do you think blockchain concerns all companies, everyone? When do you think it will become mainstream?

Sébastien Bourguignon: Blockchain potentially concerns everyone and all organisations, ultimately. But for now, as far as companies are concerned, it's important to understand the capabilities of this technology, the associated legal challenges and the business constraints before diving headfirst into a blockchain project. A first step could be implementing a POC (proof of concept) to get a clearer picture.

As for the general public, again beyond cryptocurrencies, there's little chance that blockchain will enter everyday life tomorrow. It is a technology that should sit at the heart of applications — one whose presence users need not necessarily be aware of in order to use those applications.

Is it, in your view, a silent revolution?

Sébastien Bourguignon: Absolutely. It will permeate many organisations, enable new applications and new business models to emerge — but without the end user necessarily being aware of it, or even seeing it.

If you had just one piece of advice to give companies, what would it be?

Sébastien Bourguignon: It would be to properly grasp this technology, understand its capabilities, and above all to test it in order to form your own convictions. Blockchain is still very much emerging. I often compare it to what Big Data was 5 or 6 years ago — a nebulous technology that everyone believed could deliver incredible opportunities, but for which there was little expertise on the market and a significant lack of technical maturity. And if we stick with that comparison, the general public never encounters Big Data directly — it's companies that have implemented use cases to unlock the full potential of their data stockpiles and derive value they were not previously extracting.