On 10th April 2019 at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Muscat, Dr Ramalingam, an Assistant Professor from Majan University College, was the presenter at a seminar on ‘Blockchain-Based Customer Data Platforms for Strategic Digital Transformation.’ The CEO and CFOs of Al Anwar Holdings were among the 30 or so participants who attended. Dr Ramalingam’s presentation focused on digitising business processes and exploring the potential of Blockchain for business improvement. The seminar provided an overview of Blockchain and its relationship to Bitcoin, and the architecture of Blockchain as a distributed ledger technology. The major drawbacks of distributed databases were also covered, along with unique features of Blockchain-based distributed ledgers, such as the ability to share a ledger that is updated every time a transaction occurs, and cryptographic methods of securing transactions and embedding smart contracts with each transaction. Dr Ramalingam also highlighted the benefits of permissioned blockchain such as consensus, provenance, immutability and finality properties.