Using Blockchain to Enhance the Trustworthiness of Business Processes: A Goal-Oriented Approach

Abstract

Using Blockchain seems a promising approach for Business Process Reengineering (BPR) to alleviate trust issues among stakeholders, by providing decentralization, transparency, traceability, and immutability of information along with its business logic. However, little work seems to be available on utilizing Blockchain for supporting BPR in a systematic and rational way, potentially leading to disappointments and even doubts on the utility of Blockchain. In this paper, as ongoing research, we outline Fides - a framework for exploiting Blockchain towards enhancing the trustworthiness for BPR. Fides supports diagnosing trust issues with AS-IS business processes, exploring TO-BE business process alternatives using Blockchain, and selecting among the alternatives. A business process of a retail chain for a food supply chain is used throughout the paper to illustrate Fides concepts.