HB Antwerp's game-changing move: A transparent transformation of diamonds with Azure Confidential Ledger

Belgian company HB Antwerp is redefining how natural diamonds are sourced, crafted, and sold. To gain better supply chains insight, HB Antwerp turned to Microsoft and its Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, and Azure solutions.

If the ledger is from Microsoft, you are entering into an environment of familiarity with a quick learning curve. It’s not just scalable, it’s also easily accessible. - Shai de-Toledo: Co-founder & Managing Partner - HB Antwerp

Transforming the diamond industry

In 2020, HB Antwerp, a Belgian diamond company with a fresh perspective, set out to challenge the age-old opacity of the industry. Co-founder Shai de-Toledo aptly summed up the problem: "You could tell me the diamonds came from Mars, and I'd have to take your word for it." Unlike luxury retail sectors with compelling stories for each item, the diamond industry lacked transparency. HB Antwerp aimed to redefine how natural diamonds are sourced and presented, introducing digital twins for every stone and unveiling each gem's journey from origin to artistry. In an era where trust is paramount, HB Antwerp is rewriting the rules, one diamond at a time.

Incentives on both ends

The company wanted to build a new supply chain for diamonds to increase transparency on the origin of the diamonds for stakeholders and customers. “Since we know everything that doesn’t work, we tried to do exactly the opposite,” says de-Toledo. The reimagined supply chain ecosystem needed to be built on the idea that a diamond belongs to the community that mines it. These stakeholders include the miners themselves, community members, investors, and even the government. 

First, HB Antwerp had to meet the challenge of tracing something that was previously considered untraceable. “It wasn’t considered untraceable because we’re geniuses and we discovered a new system, but because no one had the incentive to,” says de-Toledo. The biggest issue was because of segmentation; because diamonds traverse many different companies, each company did not want to know the diamond’s origin to avoid responsibility. 

The company wanted to create incentives at the two ends of the supply chain. One, from the point of view of the producer of the diamond, who wants to distinguish their stones and protect their contribution to the economy. And also from the point of view of the consumer, who is eager to learn the provenance and overall story of the diamond.

Tracking touchpoints

HB Antwerp wants consumers to know that they are entitled to information on the diamond transformation process. The company needed a solution that could create a digital twin to the physical diamond, allowing stakeholders to tell the true story of the diamond. The solution would form a blueprint to show how all tracking could be done in one place. “We build the physical infrastructure and supply the distribution, and we allow all stakeholders to follow the journey of every single stone,” says de-Toledo.

It would also need to come from a company that consumers trust. Global familiarity and confidence in Microsoft technology was a key factor in choosing the overall partnership between Industry Solutions Delivery and HB Antwerp, including the block-chain based Azure Confidential Ledger in conjunction with Azure SQL Database, Dynamics 365 Finance, and Dynamics 365 Project Operations. “Microsoft is part of that trust. You never question if Microsoft technology is authentic, if due diligence was done, or if it’s safe,” says de-Toledo. The Microsoft solution provides a safe place to deposit information with a high level of scrutiny and auditing. De-Toledo adds, “We put the benchmark really high in the hopes that other companies will create the same level of auditing and investment and meet us there. But until they do, we want to say, ‘Look, this is how it’s done.’”

Employees use Azure Confidential Ledger and Azure SQL Database to track touchpoints through roughly 3,000 block chain nodes, the device and stakeholder pairs that record and verify transactions in a decentralized network. These touchpoints are divided into six macro sections which represent the different status of a stone, from the mine through productions. The ledger helps tell an authentic and honest story of the diamond, which transforms something as technical as a ledger into an exciting tool at the heart of the company’s mission.

From mining stones to mining data

"Commencing in a data-scarce landscape, we pioneered the establishment of a data benchmark, setting a precedent for others to emulate. With our innovative solution, HB Antwerp has unlocked the ability to make highly accurate profit predictions, significantly reduce errors, enhance communication, and optimize overall value creation,” says de-Toledo. A paramount advantage offered by Azure Confidential Ledger and the Azure SQL Database is their capacity to transform data into streamlined protocols, facilitating seamless scalability and ensuring accessibility. Shai de-Toledo underscores the importance, stating, “To effect change, every stone must be meticulously tracked and verified within our system. With the Microsoft ledger, we not only gain scalability but also enjoy a user-friendly environment with a short learning curve. It's not just scalable; it's effortlessly accessible.”

These factors had a part in choosing Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Project Operations as well, alongside the need to pick mature technology. De-Toledo adds, “It starts with how you authenticate yourself when you enter Teams, and it ends with the ease of how you input information and how you receive it. There’s an unprecedented level of maturity, collaboration, and relationship to new products like Copilot, which are crucial to growth.” 

Employees use Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics Project Operations to manage the financial outcomes of transactions and the IoT, and Power BI and Power Apps to visualize the traceability of the stone. “Over the last year and a half, there have been so many new tools that Microsoft has added to help us get what we need,” says de-Toledo. Building an app that would speak to the same SQL used to be a question of six months, now it might take two days.

The biggest benefit to the Botswanan government and citizens is ownership, allowing producers to reap the financial benefits of their products. And in turn, giving customers the opportunity to see how their purchases are transforming the Botswanan economy and the life of its citizens.

Expanding the mission and the infrastructure 

HB Antwerp has been tracing 100 percent of the stones passing through its Mineral Infrastructure since day one. In the first three years of operation, HB Antwerp traced an amount of 500 million USD in diamonds. In 2024, the company plans to up the value of diamonds tracked to one billion US dollars. In terms of continuing to use AI like Copilot, de-Toledo says that 60 percent of emails are written with AI, suggesting the importance of AI to the future of the company. The company is also looking to grow by hiring more employees to expand the mission and track other precious stones with the Microsoft ecosystem.

What started as a mission to collect data on diamonds has developed into a robust solution that is also applicable to other minerals, but even more importantly, turned out to be a great catalyzer to mine data, finding useful data patterns and trends for better business insights and predictions. HB Antwerp has embraced the move from being just a diamond company to a data company. “It’s about how do you mine data and create scalability on it that attracts different humans, companies, and institutions who want to be a part of the story, and that’s how we aim to grow,” says de-Toledo. 

There’s an unprecedented level of maturity, collaboration, and relationship to new products like Copilot, which are crucial to growth.  - Shai de-Toledo: Co-founder & Managing Partner - HB Antwerp

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