Blockchain has become a key fintech topic, especially in financial services. The popularity of bitcoin and other crypto currencies as well as the needs for operational excellence, agile, costs reduction, cyber security, privacy, real-time data, reconciliation and validation are all being integrated by blockchain initiatives, at large firms and startups. Venture capital and private equity have taken noticed and have invested massively in that space. Large banks and software companies have also experimented in that area and are designing new solutions to speed up transactions and disrupt their markets. This deck will help you with best setting up a blockchain initiative. Authored by an experienced Strategy & Technology Advisor with a 15+ years track record completing successful, high impact and global projects for financial services, Fortune 500 and strategy consulting clients. Specialties: - Strategy Formulation - Digital Transformation - Deal Flow Generation - Technology Due Diligence - Deal execution - Value Creation - Operational Excellence - Program Management - Subject Matter Expertise - Technology Management Please visit www.harmeda.com for more details on our services. Primary industries served: investment banking, private equity, venture capital, asset management, hedge funds, strategy consulting, technology Tools: Salesforce, Coupa, Qualtrics, CRM, Box, GMail, Office 365, Investran, Sungard, Intellimatch, ETD, Intellisuite, Ambit, ALM, BDI, Hyperion Oracle, SAP, Peoplesoft, ERP, CTI, iLevel, Avantgard, Jobscience, LinkedIn, Relationship Science, NoSQL, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox Keywords: Storage, 6 Sigma, Agile, Bain, Balanced Scorecard, Basel, BCG, Best Practices, Big Data, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Board, Board Member, Board Members, Board of Directors, Booz, Bottom Line, Box, Business Intelligence, Business Process Management, Change Management, CIO, Cloud, Collaboration, Compliance, COO, Corporate Responsibility, Cross-Channel Marketing, Crowd-sourcing, CSR, CTO, Cyber Security, Data, Data Warehouse, Devops, Enterprise, Executives, Facebook @ Work, Fintech, General Partners, Global, Governance, Green IT, growth, Harvard, HBR, Iaas, Innovation, International, Intranet, Investors, IT Strategy, Kaizen, KPI, KPIs, Leader, Lean, Limited Partners, Margins, Marketing, Martech, MBA, McKinsey, MIT, Mobile, Network, Operational Efficiency, Outsourcing, Paas, PMI, PMP, PMO, Profits, Program Management, Project, Project Management, PWC, Real-Time, Risk Management, Roadmap, Saas, Scrum, Security, SMAC, Strategy, Sustainability, Systems Integration, Talent, Thought Leadership, Vendor, Vendor Management, Wharton

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BLOCKCHAIN?
DID YOU SAY
BLOCKCHAIN?
Harmeda © 2017

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• In this deck we are covering the step-by-step process to set up and lead a
successful blockchain initiative, from kick off to completion.
• Although this approach is mostly intended for financial services firms, it
can be applied to other industries as well.
• We are providing insights into the key considerations which will increase
your chances of reaching your objectives.
• As long as you obtain our written approval, you can re-use and modify this
deck as you see fit for your own needs. The initial contributors and
copyrights will need to be acknowledged.
• We are not covering the basics or definitions of blockchain. This is a
process and project focused deck to support blockchain initiatives.
• We are not providing recommendations on which initiatives are best for
your company or for your market in this deck. That would warrant a deeper
discussion and analysis.

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AGENDA
 Intros:
 the firm
 the contributor(s) to this deck
 Suggested reading about blockchain
 Step 1: assess threats
 Step 2: prioritize change
 Step 3: align initiatives
 Step 4: build your team and kick off the project
 Conclusion
 Contact Us

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THE FIRM
Harmeda supports and leads advisory projects for financial services,
consulting and technology clients in targeted areas:
1. We provide our clients with subject matter experts who have experience
with blockchain and other innovative technologies
2. We lead small strategic engagements to prepare for key decisions and
larger projects
3. We provide engagement and project managers, well versed with Agile and
waterfall methodologies
4. We deliver advisory, strategy and implementations services, working with
teams of experienced consultants. When needed, we establish PMOs, build
roadmaps and recommend governance best practices.
5. We often work with implementation and consulting partners, reporting to or
chairing steering committees at our clients.
Please visit www.harmeda.com for more details.

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THE AUTHOR
This deck was prepared by Max Dufour, a partner at Harmeda.
Max is a Senior Strategy & Technology Professional with a 15+ years track record
completing successful, high impact and global projects for financial services, Fortune 500
and strategy consulting clients.
Specialties:
- Strategy Formulation
- Digital Transformation
- Deal Flow Generation
- Technology Due Diligence
- Deal execution
- Value Creation
- Operational Excellence
- Program Management
- Subject Matter Expertise
- Technology Management
Please visit www.harmeda.com for more details.

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SUGGESTED READING
This deck is a summarized version of
the article “Blockchain? Did you say
blockchain?” which was posted on
LinkedIn in January 2017.
This slideshow is meant to be used as a
companion to the article, for those who are
ready to start or revamp a blockchain
initiative.
2 related articles that you might find interesting are also available online:
• 10 changes which will impact the Financial Services industry by 2030
• 4 steps to formulate a digital strategy supporting profitable growth

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Harmeda © 2017
AGENDA
 Intros:
 the firm
 the contributor(s) to this deck
 Suggested reading about blockchain
 Step 1: assess threats
 Step 2: prioritize change
 Step 3: align initiatives
 Step 4: build your team and kick off the project
 Conclusion
 Contact Us
We are now going to cover the
4 steps in the process.
Some steps have been broken
down across multiple slides
for clarity purposes.
1 2 3 4

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STEP 1: ASSESS THE THREATS
Look for and write down threats to your business, for example:
1. Look for areas where disintermediation and automation would shrink costs.
2. Look for particularly slow processes, low margin businesses or resources
hungry areas.
3. Look for transactional processes where many similar steps are required
and where errors are often found, creating needs to streamline verifications,
reconciliations and validations.
4. Look for fast growing non-standard products where operations are still
mostly manual and repetitive.
5. Determine which processes could be improved using a shared
spreadsheet or ledger that users or systems could update in real-time,
which is - at a high level - where blockchain brings the most to the
table.
1 2 3 4

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STEP 2: PRIORITIZE CHANGE
Starting from your list from step 1, match threats to opportunities and
risks, by doing the following:
1. Scan the market: what are competitors doing? what solutions are being
built by vendors?
2. Asses the risk for a business to be disrupted and the appetite for new
solutions.
3. Find white space: where is innovation weak? Where does your firm have a
solid strategic advantage? What solutions would fill the gaps?
1 2 3 4
You can get ideas about
specific initiatives, free
resources and patents in the
article “Blockchain? Did you
say blockchain?”

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STEP 2: DOCUMENT CHANGE
At the end of the day, a key question is:
“which changes will have the most positive long-term impact for the
firm?”
The answer should be:
• A list of initiatives most likely to succeed and to have a positive impact
• Prioritized by ball-parked financial impact, such as:
• initiative's total cost
• expected Return on Investment
• expected impact on the bottom line
1 2 3 4

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STEP 3: ALIGN INITIATIVES
It is now time to align the initiatives from step 2 with the strategy and the
business.
To do so, the firm’s blockchain experts and business leaders come
together and carefully review the proposed initiatives:
• Technology and business leaders decide which initiatives they want to own
but also which ones need to go to the "parking lot".
• Which ones truly leverage the strengths of blockchain?
• Which ones cannot be realistically tackled due to impending regulations or
current compliance mandates?
• Which ones fit within the budgets and can be funded until completion?
Which ones are vital to the organization’s future?
• Which ones test best with customers and focus groups?
• Which ones are best aligned with the strategy and long-term growth
objectives?
The question at this stage is “what is the best way to allocate resources to
optimize delivery across selected initiatives and achieve goals at the firm
level?”.
1 2 3 4

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STEP 4: BUILD YOUR TEAM
It is now time for the leadership team to get
together and match talent to tasks:
1. Leaders should now own specific
initiatives.
2. They need to determine the resources they
need and build up their teams.
3. Each team should be comprised - of
course - of developers with a blockchain
background but also of business leaders,
architects and project managers.
Talent in that space can be very scarce but it
can be mitigated by bringing in high potential
individuals with company and industry
experience, who can be trained and learn
quickly about blockchain.
1 2 3 4

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STEP 4: PROJECT KICK OFF
It is now time to kick off the project.
• Agile, Scrum, Lean Startup and Design Thinking principles are all good
foundations which can be complemented with software tools (such as Jira or
VersionOne) and additional methodologies favored by the firm for similar
venture design projects.
• One of the most critical considerations is to determine what tools, existing
components, current intellectual property, patents and programming
languages can be used to speed up and optimize delivery.
• It is going to save time to inventory the assets the firm can have access to
for this specific initiative. It includes the firm's intellectual property but also
publicly available assets, such open source components, updates on their
progress, testing environments and blockchain resources, which can prove
invaluable when envisioning, building and testing solutions. Some useful
links are provided in the article “Blockchain? Did you say blockchain?”
1 2 3 4

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STEP 4: REPORT UP
• Teams should be able to mostly function independently but it is key to keep
connections between them and allow cross-cooperation.
• Having a bi-weekly meeting between all the team leads and a monthly forum
for all to share progress, learn about other streams, provide industry
updates and address challenges can prove very beneficial.
• Lastly, regular updates to steering committees should address what can be
delivered, when, at what cost and how they will benefit the firm. High level
risks and challenges should be shared as well.
• As in any new ventures, experimentations can go well or sometimes not
lead to conclusive next steps as planned. It is important to share scenarios,
wire frames, live demos with flaws and proposed changes to the process,
such as extending the timeline, bringing in help or expanding efforts into
new areas.
The on-going goal for the team leads is to foster support through
transparency and resourcefulness.
1 2 3 4

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AGENDA
 Intros:
 the firm
 the contributor(s) to this deck
 Suggested reading about blockchain
 Step 1: assess threats
 Step 2: prioritize change
 Step 3: align initiatives
 Step 4: build your team and kick off the project
 Conclusion
 Contact Us

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IN CONCLUSION
Best case scenario?
• Your firm will identify the ideal strategic blockchain initiatives to explore.
• It will end up having the right team and the right processes to take potential
solutions all the way to the live stage, where the business will start seeing
real tangible value in its day-to-day operations.
• That will trigger a second waves of initiatives with more funding and larger
teams to transform the entire business and contribute to the re-invention of
the financial services industry.
How are your blockchain initiatives going? Feel free to share your
comments or to reach out directly.

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Harmeda © 2017
CONTACT US
For more information about our work and for our insights, please visit
www.harmeda.com
To discuss your project needs or for any questions, please contact:
Max Dufour
mdufour@harmeda.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxime/
Partner
Boston, MA
Thank you for taking the time to go through our materials. We hope we
will get to work together in the near future.

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KEYWORDS
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decentralization, privacy, security, cyber security, mining, miner, orphaned-
blocks, sidechains, compiling, hash, haspower, block, interval, bootstrap, proof-
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key, bitcoin network, Dark Wallet, zero-knowledge proof, CIO, CTO, COO,
CDO, CEO, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief
Executive Officer, Chief Operations Officer, Chief Data Officer, Chief Digital
Officer, Research Firm, advisory, consulting, how to, free, free content, tips,
advise, approach, scope, kicking off, launching, smart contracts, regtech,
fintech, regulatory, economy, growth, growth strategy, strategy formulation