Since its peak in 2017, the hype surrounding bitcoin has heightened interest in blockchain, the technology behind the cryptocurrency. Numerous academic articles and studies on blockchain have been published over the last few years, and in late 2019, the state of Bavaria decided to promote this technology by establishing the Bavarian Center for BlockChain, or [bc]2. In the light of these developments, we would like to examine whether blockchain technology might be deployed to improve procure-to-pay processes.

The cloud market is teeming with providers. With its product "Azure," Microsoft is among the leading players in the field, butting up against other major corporations such as Amazon with AWS, IBM with its IBM Cloud, and, last but not least, Google itself. They provide Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or even Software as a Service (SaaS). In addition to these corporations, all of which are American-based, there are many other providers of cloud services. Particularly in the SaaS environment, providers from Germany are to be recommended, not least because of their location.

In all different areas, digitization is in full swing. Quite frequently, this is intertwined with the cloud. Cloud solutions are being offered more, and they are being used more. Not only individual consumers, but also companies are relying on cloud solutions — in particular, for processes that can be standardized, as they are easy to move. Outsourcing reduces costs for infrastructure and configuration and enables agile response to changing market requirements. Popular software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions allow companies and users to access services right on the internet. The cloud covers a diversity of applications, ranging from CRM systems to personnel management solutions and document management systems (DMS) for digital archiving, automated invoice processing, etc.

Audit-proof, unchangeable, long-term data retention—until just a few months ago, these were the keywords used for advertising electronic archive systems. What was expected of a good archive solution was that it would store data indelibly and for eternity.