London, UK, Tuesday, April 23, 2024 – Ernst & Young, the global professional services firm, unveiled on April 17 a new blockchain-powered solution called EY OpsChain Contract Manager (OCM) designed to streamline and secure complex business agreements. 1
In a media release, EY said that the OCM helps businesses execute multi-party contracts while maintaining confidentiality, improving efficiency, and reducing costs.
EY’s solution leverages the Ethereum public blockchain, fostering a decentralized and trustworthy environment.
This approach prevents any one party, buyer or seller, from gaining an unfair advantage. Additionally, it avoids the high costs associated with private networks and the security risks of centralized portals.
OCM utilizes zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to maintain enterprise privacy. This technology allows verification of contract terms without revealing sensitive business information.
The system automatically enforces agreed-upon terms, eliminating the risk of errors or disputes.
EY Claims that the solution tackles a significant challenge for businesses: managing contracts across internal departments and external partners, often hampered by siloed systems.
OCM synchronizes data across all parties involved, ensuring consistent enforcement of key terms like pricing, discounts, and rebates.
It said that previously, fragmented spending data made it difficult for businesses to capture the full value of their agreements and track discounts or rebates earned. Smart contracts within OCM enable the aggregation of spending data across systems, ensuring consistent application of contract terms.
It said that the solution seamlessly integrates with existing enterprise systems through a standardized API. It supports a wide range of business contracts, including volume purchase agreements, standardized pricing models, and rebate structures. Initial users are employing OCM for complex Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) that incorporate market prices and pre-defined purchase criteria.
Paul Brody, EY Global Blockchain Leader, highlights the potential benefits of OCM. “We’ve seen contract automation improve accuracy and reduce processing times by over 90%,” says Brody, “and overall contract administration costs by nearly 40%.”
He emphasizes that utilizing a public blockchain makes the solution not only cheaper but also more scalable, enabling “many-to-many integrations on an open platform” without any one company controlling the network.
For more information about EY Blockchain solutions, visit: https://www.ey.com/en_gl/services/blockchain.2
- ey.com: https://www.ey.com/en_gl/newsroom/2024/04/ey-launches-opschain-contract-manager-solution-to-support-secure-private-business-agreements-on-public-ethereum[↩]
- ey.com: https://www.ey.com/en_gl/services/blockchain[↩]
