We’ve only seen the tip of the blockchain iceberg. Enterprises that get involved now will have many opportunities to tap into its fullest potential. The first step is finding out where blockchain can bring the most significant advantages today.
Spending on blockchain technology totaled $6.6 billion in 2021 as more companies figured out how to get involved. But it’s more than currencies and investments; the advantages of blockchain in enterprise are numerous. The exact blockchain opportunities are unique to each business’s existing systems and processes.
Enterprise blockchain adoption eliminates friction to accelerate processes, reduce costs, and enable automation, allowing companies to improve data quality and automate processes like never before. Having a shared, trusted ledger between parties is a game-changer that’s fostering innovation across the board.
The industry is still young, and we’re only starting to see the tip of the iceberg regarding blockchain potential in business.
Advantages of Blockchain in Enterprise
A multitude of industries are getting involved in blockchain technology today. Many see it transforming their business by future-proofing their technology and providing immutable record systems. At Chainyard, we’ve discussed how blockchain is changing money and business with several companies and helped guide fascinating transformations.
One global IT firm contacted us to learn how we could help reduce the cost of invoice processing. Typically, multiple stakeholders are involved in enterprise technology decisions. Beyond internal business units, many enterprises outsource elements of IT. We leveraged a blockchain solution to automate invoice generation, eliminate blocked invoices, and ultimately cut processing costs in half.
In the private equity world, our client sought a way to involve multiple stakeholders in its fund, including general partners, advisors, administrators, regulators, banks, and more. The existing process involved a lot of data sharing and redundant processes like data entry. It was an opaque and lengthy settlement process that caused the firm to miss targets. By implementing blockchain technology, we were able to improve its processes to help meet goals.
We’ve also helped companies with large supply chains realize their blockchain potential. Without a fully digitized and immutable system of record, it’s difficult for any enterprise to manage supplier relationships. Fragmented information and technological gaps make finding, onboarding, and managing suppliers laborious. Blockchain technology can eliminate 90% of redundant tasks, speed up cycle time by 90%, and reduce administrative costs by half for most of these companies.
5 Ways to Discover Blockchain Opportunities
With more than 10,000 blockchain companies today, finding the right one to suit your needs can be overwhelming. It’s never easy to find a solution to integrate into the business, and it’s important to get buy-in from all stakeholders across the enterprise. Here are five steps to get started.
- Study blockchain.
The blockchain industry has a lot of different terms to understand, like smart contracts, NFTs, and sometimes even new programming languages like Ethereum’s Solidity. Dive into whitepapers, forums, and research papers to learn everything you can about the underlying blockchain technology and what it means to your business.Each blockchain platform is different, and you need a solution that suits your business needs best. Read everything you can to determine what benefits and use cases blockchain can serve to meet your business needs.
- Discuss with peers.
Change management is a lengthy and resource-intensive process as companies must guide every employee to new ways of working. You never know when making a change can have downstream effects until you discuss it with the business units.Start the discussion early and involve all key decision makers to hear their thoughts on proposed blockchain initiatives. Some will be open to new collaborative possibilities, while others may have objections. Discovering concerns early and finding ways to overcome them will quicken the implementation process.
- Research partners.
Once you understand what your company needs, you should consider partners that know how to address your business segment. The blockchain company you choose should have experience and understand how to resolve the pain points specific to your market. It should be flexible to your business needs and willing to work with you in a win-win style relationship. - Quantify value.
Business leaders need reasons to invest in any proposed solutions, so you must quantify the value blockchain will bring. By examining and assessing value streams, you can discover inefficiencies and show how a newly proposed solution can help. You can also evaluate your competition to determine how a solution can help you get and stay ahead. These points will increase your chances of getting buy-in from all relevant stakeholders. - Continuously improve.
Once you implement a solution, continuously monitor it for improvements. Encourage users to submit feedback so you understand how to refine the platform further to fit your company’s specific needs. This will protect your investment and ensure you maximize value and ROI.
Blockchain technology presents a plethora of opportunities for enterprises that implement it. This is occurring fast across all market segments, and spending on blockchain is projected to increase over the next decade. Leaders looking to future-proof their businesses should find out where blockchain can offer significant advantages.
Written by Isaac Kunkel.
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