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While Bitcoin captured the public imagination due to its meteoric rise and then a period of severe fluctuation and volatility, it’s actually the technology which makes the existence of Bitcoin possible that’s slated to play a major role and disrupt the business arena in the upcoming years.
Simply put, blockchain can be considered as a ledger that updates any alteration to information done on it on all points similarly. This groundbreaking concept ensures that no matter who views the information, it’s always witnessing the most updated version of that information.
That’s why Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies can be traded so easily without any single regulatory authority controlling them. Whenever a Bitcoin transaction takes place by anyone, the whole system gets updated and anyone can go on and view that information without being able to alter it.
But as the craze for cryptos tapers off and subsides, businesses have started looking at potentially advantageous way on how Blockchain can actually be useful to them in different situations.
Blockchain’s biggest potential lies in the fact that it can streamline things like no one can. Its implementation in a business scenario will bring in efficiency and effectiveness in how different transactions and information sharing exercises can be done without wasting too much time updating everything and ensuring that everyone arrives on the same conclusion.
This will especially benefit small to medium enterprises as they can really rely upon Blockchain to deliver the transparency, reduction in costs and faster transactions that will positively affect their bottom lines.
If you are an entrepreneur at the helm of such an enterprise, here’s how your business can make use of Blockchain technologies in the external as well as the internal environment:
Establishing and Implementing Contracts
Contracts are agreements between two parties over the agreed course of action regarding a certain objective, but at most times, these very contracts need to be changed or altered. While doing this, there is a lot of back and forth going on to bring these changes into everyone’s knowledge and as contracts are essential before you can start off anything, eliminating such unnecessary delays will definitely be worthwhile and allow you to start things in time and with everyone’s due approval.
By integrating such contracts and liaisons via Blockchain, you are assured that all changes made are traceable by everyone. This “audit trail” will ensure the transfer of information faster and reduce approval times significantly.
Strategic Differentiator in Expediting a Better Customer Experience
Businesses deal in delivery of product and services to consumers but tracking deliveries at each point in the chain is something that Blockchain can revolutionize.
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Parcels often get lost meaning the customer didn’t receive them but they need to complain can be eliminated altogether when a customer can track the whole supply chain as things get updated in real-time. Similar models without Blockchain already operate but they have certain inherent flaws.
These systems still require customers and even companies to prove that delivery hasn’t been done, but if there is a GPS tracking device in each parcel that can generate a Blockchain entry at each point in the supply chain, such problems will never arise.
Also, companies wouldn’t need customer complaints to ascertain how well their supply chains are performing. Data will be present in its most precise form to withdraw conclusions from and improve bottlenecks and problem points substantially.
It will even be possible to authorize payments only when the product has been received, further making the buying process easier and facilitative for the customer.
Candidate Profiling and Payroll Authentication
Companies need internal efficiencies on top of improving the customer experience if they want to do well. Blockchain could seriously effect on such internal issues and that is of streamlining human resource operations within any firm.
Keeping track of any employee’s progress record, its historical association and experience and even educational achievements could be done securely and in an optimized manner via Blockchain. The encryption will allow all such sensitive data to remain secure at endpoints with warded access intervals.
If a decentralized ledger is created of such data from potential candidates, a lot of companies can make vital business decisions. Even candidates could access data from companies like turnover rates and check whether a certain company is fit for applying or not.
Most companies now handle a diverse workforce consisting of people with varying titles and locations. If a firm depends upon freelancers from overseas to do a certain type of work, it can eliminate banks and other intermediaries while distributing invoices and payments thereby substantially reducing the cost as well as time that is wasted.
Will these Propositions Ever Become a Part of Reality?
These ideologies are now being effectively applied in many different forms and in many different industries. However, Blockchain require substantial investments to run power from computing and its detractors have argued that it firstly, it will never be feasible for small businesses to ever apply Blockchain-based solutions due to the high costs involved and secondly, no major cost-cutting has been witnessed in any such Blockchain-based initiative till now but Dr. Demetrios Zamboglou, who is currently the Chief Operating Officer of BABB and an entrepreneur with extensive experience in emerging markets, argues that although these concerns are right to a certain extent, they won’t remain so for long. He is also a published author who has completed multiple award-winning research projects during his career, including The European Commission Digital Champion, Microsoft Award, and the Amazon Grant, opinionates that business models will be upended via Blockchain as it brings in ease of information sharing and transactions within businesses and outside of them and because the success of Bitcoin and cryptos have shown that how a Blockchain-based system cannot just be sustained but also bring in incredible benefits to things that ride upon it, there’s good reason to believe that soon the business realm will start witnessing tangible improvements through Blockchain-based initiatives that will benefit all stakeholders involved.
