Verified Orchestration’s journey to transform trust at scale
The Australian Cyber Security Centre’s last annual report recorded an astounding 76,000 cybercrimes, a shocking 13% increase on the previous year. While high profile hacks of organisations such as Optus and Medibank make the headlines, every organisation is now at risk of a cyber attack in what Minister for Cyber Security, Clare O’Neill, has warned could be a “dystopian future”.
Trust and privacy are central to combatting this ever-evolving threat environment, and are the principles upon which Verified Orchestration has built its burgeoning web 3.0 business.
Starting with a simple premise - to explore the potential of how web 3.0 technology could improve the world - CEO and founder Richard Mallam settled on attempting to use the latest blockchain, web and decentralisation technology to enhance trust within the enterprise context, particularly in the domain of identity verification.
“We identified the core problem we wanted to address as being the relationship between employers and workers, or organisations and their members,” says Mallam. “If you can improve that relationship at scale, increasing the flow of information and economic opportunities, it opens up benefits, from productivity gains and IT security improvements to reduced IT spend and tech debt.”
With most enterprises relying on labour-intensive HR and IT admin processes for vetting and onboarding individuals, there is significant potential for inefficiencies and vulnerabilities to appear. Employees can become frustrated by multiple checks and long and inconsistent processes, while employers that add steps in a bid to protect systems and people can find this opens up more opportunities for bad actors to gain access.
Mallam explains, “we identified the problem, had the idea to solve it, and we knew the market, but we needed to rapidly add technical capacity to build the solution while we formed our own in-house team.”
Enter MakerX.
With a solution that was truly innovative and represented a significant step change for the market, Mallam and the Verified Orchestration team sought a partner that could confidently deliver a highly uncertain, bleeding-edge technology build for a predictable investment.
“We know there’s an education piece to be done with enterprises about the potential of web 3.0 technologies, particularly in this space. Our focus had to be on that, while being able to trust a partner to deliver,” says Mallam.
MakerX offered three key factors which cemented the partnership - a strong reputation for building robust software solutions, proven web 3.0 credentials, and MakerX's approach of aligning outcomes with business objectives to ensure the technical solution was tailored to address real-world market needs.
Rob Moore, Chief Technology Officer at MakerX, led the project and explains how the project evolved over time.
“When Verified Orchestration first engaged MakerX, it was to create a technical proof of concept to prove the viability of the solution. The data model we created then has remained, but we’ve since moved on to developing a minimum viable product and now to building a more holistic solution that has the features that attract our key target market of enterprise customers.”
Throughout the process, regular showcases, presentations, and workshops ensured the working relationship remained strong, and that the product development reflected both the technical rigour and market need required.
“There was a constant willingness to address technical, process, or ideation challenges from both sides. I think this fostered a collaborative environment that’s really conducive to innovation and problem-solving,” says Mallam.
Having incorporated feedback from both technical and market perspectives, Verified Orchestration’s current product has seen an enthusiastic response from prospective customers.
“People are genuinely surprised and delighted at how well the software performs. The feedback is that the speed, intuitive user interface, and strength of the software means we have been able to simplify the complexity, and develop features that customers and users really want,” reports Mallam.
This confidence is vital in an area where trust is central and adding new products is fraught with technological and reputational risk, not to mention the potential for user error.
Verified Orchestration is now addressing feedback by adding more features, including the ability to issue a credential in person, the ability to lifecycle manage credentials, and integrating this new technology into core productivity software.
The positive market reaction has not only accelerated the growth of Verified Orchestration, but also validates the belief of major organisations like the Tech Council of Australia, of which Mallam is a member, that decentralised identities and verifiable credentials will soon become integral to the broader economy.
“The advantage of the work we’ve done with MakerX is that they build solutions which combine technical expertise with business acumen, meaning we now have a product which matches our market and is easily scalable to support our growth,” explains Mallam.
“There is a broader movement towards digital identity and cybersecurity solutions, and Verified Orchestration is well-prepared to lead the way.”