Miller Magazine Issue: 126 June 2020

64 65 TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM MILLER / JUNE 2020 MILLER / JUNE 2020 “Our industry has not significantly changed the way we operate in the past 200 years. Most processes are manual, paper and labor-reliant and prone to a lot of errors, inefficiencies and duplications. We are building a secure digital platform that will minimize the operating risks while increasing market efficiency for the entire commodities trading and shipping industry. The case for blockchain is even stronger as the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the need for more resilient global supply chains, trusted data and an economic recovery enabled through trade digitization.” Covantis will replace inefficient post-trade processes for agricultural commodities Petya SECHANOVA CEO Covantis Interview: Namık Kemal Parlak Digitalization has a vast impact on world economies. Digital trade and technology have triggered a profound transformation of economic and trade structures. Tech- nologies, smart applications and other innovations in the digital economy can improve services and help ad- dress policy challenges in a wide range of areas, includ- ing agriculture, transport and commodity trading. There is no doubt that the coronavirus outbreak will accelerate the digital transformation in the world. Technology and digitalization will be more on the agenda. The impor- tance of e-commerce will increase for food and agricul- tural industry. The world's biggest agribusiness companies have launched an important blockchain initiative to mod- ernize global trade operations. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, Louis Dreyfus Compa- ny, and Glencore Agriculture created Covantis initiative to replace outdated, inefficient post-trade processes with modern solutions. The initiative aims to bring effi- ciencies and cost savings to companies throughout the international supply chain. Covantis CEO Petya Sechanova, a veteran in major global supply chain and agricultural companies, gave an exclusive interview to Miller Magazine on the mission of the initiative. Sechanova has more than 20 years of ex- perience in multinational companies, including 11 years with Cargill, during which she has served in a series of leadership positions. “We are building a secure digital platform that will minimize the operating risks while in- creasing market efficiency for the entire commodities trading and shipping industry,” Sechanova said. “The case for blockchain is even stronger as the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the need for more resilient global supply chains, trusted data and an economic recovery enabled through trade digitization.” Could you please provide us with some brief background information on Covan- tis? How do you define Covantis? Covantis is an initiative by the commod- ities trading and shipping industry for the commodities trading and shipping industry. ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Cofco, Louis Dreyfus and Glencore Agriculture came together to create more efficiency and value for every- one in the industry. We are doing that by using forward-think- ing technology to replace manual and re- dundant processes. Neutral yet robust technology means all of us can leverage dig- italization to improve information flows— with total security. The platform aims to help people work in a more efficient and accurate way, to reduce the time spent in exchanging e-mails, repeating information, filing, … and allow people to focus on solving complex logistics issues thus adding value to our customers. Covantis was founded by global agribusiness firms ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Glencore, LDC and COFCO. How did these competing companies come togeth- er? What is the motivation? The motivation is really to modernize our business, we all thought the new technology could enable us to leverage digitalization and bring huge improvements to the way we all work. In order to achieve our goal, we realized that we had to work together and build this platform together for the whole industry. Covantis will replace outdated, inefficient post-trade processes for agricultural commodities execution with modern solutions. We are building a secure digital plat- form that will minimize the operating risks while in- creasing market efficiency for the entire commodities trading and shipping industry. What are the benefits and advantages of using a blockchain platform for all supply chain actors? What are the opportunities the blockchain can bring? How does the blockchain technology work? Can you tell us it in a simple way? Covantis platform is based on Quorum blockchain. Quorum is an open-source blockchain platform based on Ethereum, that combines the innovation of the pub- lic Ethereum community with enhancements to sup- port enterprise needs. Quorum has been developed by J.P.Morgan bank for fintech operations. Using this technology will enable us to provide privacy, strong per- missions and high performance and is one of the more