The Distichain founders comprise of experts with a combined experience of 45 years of experience across multiple categories within the consumer goods industry. The founders have been working in multinationals and large distribution organizations, and have served in General Management positions for 20 of the 45 years, leading large organizations with complex Regional Value Chains. What makes the team stand out is that along with the capacity to understand the heart of the issues surfacing the B2B industry, they are technology enthusiasts as they themselves witnessed a technological revolution as smartphones and apps emerged to fundamentally change the mobile handset businesses they managed. They can draw out a clear vision of how to capitalize on the identified opportunity as we enter the 4th industrial revolution.
Haisam Jamal (Co-Founder, Leadership) —
What motivated you to start Distichain?
Across my 20 year career in large consumer goods MNCs & distribution operations, the B2B wholesale business had not developed and is still very limited. Lack of trust & data dominated and moving to a B2B e-commerce platform was far too costly considering our low channel margins. With blockchain & AI we saw an opportunity to eliminate risk and lower costs significantly.
What has been the biggest challenge so far?
Like any startup we face multiple challenges to get the business rolling. Creating the ecosystem required is a particular challenge since blockchain use cases are still in their early stages and while we find our market fit, potential partners (large corporations & other startups) are also finding theirs.
Wassim Merheby (Co-Founder, Strategy)—
Where do you draw inspiration for Distichain’s strategic direction?
Being an entrepreneur is a passion for me. I built a distribution and services business in 2010 and experienced first-hand the pain points of current B2B e-commerce businesses.
I got inspired by B2C e-commerce rise in the last 10 years, since the start of Amazon and other similar marketplaces and the spread of credit cards globally.
Distichain strategy is to render B2B trading as easy as B2C marketplaces by automating business processes and offering credit security.
What are some of Distichain’s biggest strategic hurdles and how have you overcome them?
Distichain’s biggest strategic hurdles are trust and integration. Integration is addressed by adoption of private Blockchain platform Hyperledger or similar. Trust is established through smart contracts backed by Bank guaranteeing the transactions and Distichain trade credit insurance to secure sellers’ credit extended to buyers. In addition, the adoption of Digital KYC ensures that all players are certified before accessing the platform.
Smrithi Raj (Project Management)—-
What drew you to join Distichain?
Distichain is being developed on the edge of what’s possible technologically. It offers us a very steep learning curve on the benefits of integrating Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence.
Which part of Distichain’s platform do you find most revolutionary?
The most challenging components were: Smart contract automation, Smart ERP plug-in, Negotiation and mediation engine.
Sindhuja CK (Development)—
What are some of the challenges in developing Distichain’s platform? How did you solve them?
Blockchain is not easy to integrate and some features need very meticulous attention of users. We needed to find the ultimate solution to ensure that the user’s experience is as simple as they are used to today. This is achieved with digital KYC verification for example.
Distichain connects to many service providers. Many are still developing their APIs for integration of their solutions. We needed to keep our solution as agnostic to communicate with integrators APIs and log the transactions across different Blockchain infrastructure. This was achieved by teaming with some leading development companies across the Globe.
What inspired you to join the Distichain team?
Distichain is at the centre of trade and commerce automation. The solution offers automation tools for involved industries such as banking, logistics and insurance. It is expected to be a joy-ride delivering and seeing Distichain achieve its potential.
Mohammed Arif Ansari (Operations)—
Which aspect of Distichain’s operations do you find most rewarding?
Building a platform of this scale, using technologies of the Future namely Blockchain and AI, with multiple product categories, with hundreds of partners across different service areas, setting up regional trading hubs across major locations and recruiting in-country agents spread all over the globe, this is quite exciting and challenging and at the same time the most rewarding part of our Operations.
What’s Distichain’s biggest operational advantage over other B2B e-commerce trading platforms?
None of the other B2B E-commerce platforms have got all the service providers(Logistics, Insurance, KYC/AML, Banks etc) in one secure, seamlessly integrated, GDPR compliant platform. Also, almost none of them have the option of trading anonymously, that too at such a low transaction commission rate.
Lynn Itani (Marketing)—
With so many key stakeholders in Distichain’s ecosystem, who do you find it most challenging to market to and why?
As a disruptor of traditional B2B business models, it will be challenging to engage and bring together stakeholders. Change is always difficult and our focus will be on change agents that can see our vision and the tremendous benefits it brings to participants. This will shake the status quo and create a snowball effect.
Where do you draw inspiration for your work at Distichain?
My source of inspiration is the team. Every player involved is working with passion and determination — they only see SUCCESS! This spurs creativity and drives me to approach marketing from a holistic perspective. Inspiration is contagious, and my aim is to spread it onto Distichain’s community.
