World economies have been in the process of digitization for a long time. Earlier, digital technologies were used to boost businesses by providing results much faster.
Blockchain, however, presents something different from earlier generations of technology. It brings an exchange of value. So, what is blockchain? It’s a system for recording information in a way that makes it impossible for anyone to hack or cheat the system. It’s a digital ledger of transactions duplicated and distributed across the entire network.
A Google document, for instance, is a simple analogy for understanding blockchain technology. When a document is created and shared, it gets distributed and not copied or transferred. This creates a decentralized distribution chain, where those authorized can access the document.
Any changes to the document get recorded in real-time, making the modifications transparent. Sure, blockchain is more complicated compared to a Google document. But the analogy is apt as it exemplifies three important ideas of blockchain technology. That’s the ability to reduce risks, eliminate fraud, and bring transparency in a scalable way for users.
How Blockchain Improves Businesses
Although blockchain has gained momentum, some people still confuse the terminology. They think it’s a synonym for bitcoin and as such, they use the two terms interchangeably. So, when blockchain is mentioned, they think of the extent of cryptocurrencies.
There’s no reason for you to lose out on the huge business opportunities that blockchain has to offer. Because of the similarity you think it has with cryptocurrencies. In this article, we tell you about how blockchain can improve your business.
So how does blockchain help in improving businesses?
1. Enabled Security and Privacy
Blockchain technology helps to secure the data of the shared community. The use of blockchain ensures that no unauthorized person has access to data.
This technology enables you to handle data that’s been distributed across a network. Additionally, blockchain is useful in public services. That’s because it helps to keep public records decentralized and safe. So how does blockchain technology improve the security and privacy of a business?
Blockchain as the name suggests is a chain of digital blocks. Every chain is connected to all the blocks before and after it. This makes it impossible to interfere with any record of a transaction, for instance. The reason is that a hacker will be required to change the block containing that record. That would have to include every other block linked to it to avoid raising any alarm. You can learn more about blockchain in coruzant, it’s a technology publication which is built on blockchain.
The other way blockchain provides security is that records get secured through cryptography. What is cryptography? It’s the key to the security of the blockchain ledger. With the help of encrypted data, every transaction gets recorded on the blockchain.
Authorized individuals can access information using their public and private keys. The keys are assigned to the transactions that users make and act as the user’s digital signature.
In case a record gets interfered with, the digital signature becomes invalid. The peer network gets an immediate notification that something has happened. Action is then taken to prevent further damage.
2. Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management is about the movement of work in progress. The movement of products from the place of origin to the client creates a loyal client to your brand. This process should follow the schedule to ensure it reaches your clients at the right time.
Blockchain can be used to track products, exchange of agreements, and payments. Take for instance, the food industry. Walmart utilizes blockchain in tracking its products to the end consumer.
Walmart tracks its pork meat from China as blockchain keeps a record of the meat from the orders made. It’s thanks to the tracking that investigators can find and remove suppliers that provide food-borne diseases.
This technology brings the power of transparency and immutability to the supply process. It also makes it easy for businesses to combat counterfeiting and delays in delivery.
3. Improved Marketing Campaigns
Blockchain has had an impact on the business economy by improving marketing campaigns. Blockchain’s business model enables businesses to keep track of clients’ information.
The information helps marketers in creating effective campaigns. It also leads to a return on investment.
Additionally, blockchain technology enables businesses to validate the traffic from the real world. As a result, they’re able to relish higher outcomes from every single penny invested in the process.
Lucidity, a digital advertising blockchain platform stores and verifies marketing events. This ensures transparency and accurate data. Organizational platforms use smart contracts to give marketing teams insights into marketing campaigns.
This enables them to track payments to ad publishers and eliminate fraud. This gets done by flagging fake bot views.
4. Customer Engagement
Blockchain also improves businesses by opening new doors of engagement with consumers. The integration of blockchain and customer engagement leads to more opportunities. The opportunities can be attained by selecting the best blockchain-as-a-service provider.
Customer engagement doesn’t always meet with financial technology. Blockchain is a technology that can transform how people conduct businesses. It can influence how organizations engage with target audiences.
Blockchain enhances consumer service and expands connectivity for vulnerable clients. This technology makes organizations appear transparent as it protects business-client experiences.
Blockchain can affect consumer engagement. However, an effective adoption is dependent on how organizations use the technology to re-imagine touch points on the users’ path. There’s space for entrepreneurs and marketers to use blockchain to utilize a network of loyalty services meant to lock in new clients.
5. Financial Management
Organizations spend a lot of money on managing and improving their systems. Due to this, businesses are always looking forward to investing in cost-effective systems.
The integration of blockchain leads to cost reductions associated with third-party vendors. Also, there’s no need for businesses to pay for vendor costs. That’s because blockchain has no inherited centralized player.
Moreover, there’s less interaction required when authorizing a transaction. This eliminates the need to spend time doing basic manual stuff. That’s how important blockchain is to businesses.
6. Capital Raising
Blockchain offers entrepreneurs an alternative method to raise capital through Initial Token Offerings. ITOs are accessible for exchanges where they can freely trade.
ITOs are similar to equity or a revenue share in typical organizations. Investors can buy into ITOs and receive new blockchain-based tokens from organizations.
The token might have some utility in using the product an organization is providing. Or, it might represent a stake in the organization. ITOs have become a practical capital-raising alternative for organizations of all sizes.
7. Creation of Trust
Blockchain technology creates trust between parties where trust is non-existent. It makes it possible to engage in business dealings that involve transactions. Some of the business dealings involve data sharing between different entities. This is something that may not have been possible without blockchain. Or, it might have required an intermediary.
The trust that’s brought by the use of blockchain is one of the most important benefits of this technology. This was evident in early blockchain use cases. They enabled transactions between entities that had no direct relationships. The entities also managed to share data and transactions.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are typical examples of how blockchain facilitates trust between entities.
Final Take Away
Blockchain technology is securing its position as an important technology across the world. Beginning from the finance sector to real estate. And, from the pharmaceutical industry to retail.
This technology is slowly moving towards becoming mainstream. Small businesses are also keeping tabs on blockchain technology. They want to understand how beneficial it is in different industries.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve probably been in a situation where you had so much to do. You probably needed to serve many clients but ended up with very little in your bank account.
Businesses today lose a lot of cash due to procedural delays. Others lose money through human error and the fee that’s paid to middlemen. You’ll get a lot of money from your business if you integrate blockchain technology. That’s because it eliminates silly mistakes, speeds up transactions, and removes middlemen.