Is Blockchain Best Emerging Technology to Use in Business Today? Case Study

Is Blockchain best emerging technology to use in business today? Well, of late, a massive risk has been imposed by the emergence of innovations that are exploited in businesses.

For instance, some of the technologies are not secure, ineffective, inconvenient, and not transparent. This usually leads to a loss of expenditure and resources as most managers complain.

Debate on choosing the best technology to use in business to maximize the companies’ production and sales is of concern in the 21st Century.

In fact, most companies are in dilemma to make decisions on which innovations is more secure, transparent, effective and convenient.

According to IBM, venturing into Blockchain technology is one of the best emerging innovations to use in business today.

Because it provides greater transparency in the business process, a high-security level, as everything that happens on the Blockchain is scrambled, and it is conceivable to demonstrate that information has not been changed.

Due to its dispersed nature, you can check record marks over all the records on all the hubs in the system and confirm that they have not been changed.

Benefits of Blockchain in Business Today 

Several business owners and billionaires often recognized and deploy blockchain in their businesses because it reduces expenditure costs and is very effective. Besides, it improves traceability, as Blockchain can empower progressively straightforward and precise end-to-end tracking in the supply chain.

Organizations can digitize physical resources and make a decentralized changeless record of all its transactions, making it conceivable to track resources from production level to conveyance or use by end client as contrasted to other new technologies.

Blockchain cloud services make it easy to gather, integrate, and share innumerable transactional data from multiple sources with little to no security risks.

This innovation offers another way to deal with various data-related issues and sharing of appropriate ideas and solutions with other entrepreneurs across the world to enhance business environment.

Its implication in retail, cross-border and business-to-business (B2B) transactions are innumerable. 

Impact of Blockchain on the World

Most companies are in a dilemma to make decisions on which innovations are more secure, transparent, effective, and convenient.

Business owners are overwhelmed with the cases of cybercrime, which has resulted in the loss of companies’ credentials and customers’ details. 

However, blockchain has provided the best alternatives for business owners by helping in reducing data-related issues such as data insecurity, data loss, and inconsistency, lack of transparency, low quality and inaccurate data among others as cited by Sakız & Gencer in their study in 2019 .

According to Yaga et al. In their study conducted in 2019, blockchain permits payments to be done with no bank or any middle person, making it suitable to be utilized in different monetary services such as remittance, digital assets, and online payments.

Moreover, it can be applied in different fields, including intelligent agreements, public services, Internet of Things (IoT), notoriety frameworks, and security services  as cited by Zheng et al., in their case study in 2017.

Benefits of Blockchain in B2B transactions

In B2B transactions, it help in increasing the transaction process, reduce transaction costs, secures transactions and enhance transparency.

For instance, when a given business owner is paying the supplier, the buyer conduct the payment from its accounts, which direct linked to the bank account of the supplier.

This attributes to the transfer of a time-stamp and title of currency enabling the exchange irrevocable, secure and faster. Moreover, the decentralized nature of the blockchain ledger prevent delays, the use of middlemen, and avoids fraud, as all the executed operations are validated within the system as per Zheng et al.

A smart contract on the blockchain offers B2B transactions with the ability to auditable service fees and charge transparency. It also enables sellers to update their accounts in the database with transaction confirmation, which is an auditable payment.

Actually, Blockchain help sellers and buyers to eliminate costly errors that may occur during transactions.

For instance, Blockchain ensures the transaction validity is coded in the main register, yet linked to decentralized system of registers, which are further linked via a secure validation process.

This implies that transactions cannot be missed, no machine or human error or the transaction is carried out without the consent of a give involved parties.

Blockchain in Retail Transactions 

In retail transactions, blockchain is also widely used. The retailers benefits from achieving faster transactions, verifiable delivery tracking and immutable services.

Retailers utilize blockchain that secures their transactions, cut cost, faster, and enhance transparent retail supply chain management that provides long-term benefits.

Currently, blockchain in retail is primarily utilized in handling documents via smart contracts, compliance management, inventory and supply chain management, identification, customer care automation, and transactions as per a study by Zheng et al.

It facilitates logistics and distribution, thus retailers can enhance their efficiency.  In all these activities, blockchain provides high security due to its non-manipulability, including reducing cost, and fraud, including limiting hacking, and enhancing the transaction process.

It also helps reduce costly errors such as machine and human error. This makes retailers feel more trusted in their transactions.

Blockchain in Cross-border Money Transfer

In cross-border Money transfer, blockchain is also applied effectively, as there is the use of encrypted distributed ledgers that offers trusted timely verification of payment across nations without the presence of middlemen.

This means that individuals can easily make their transactions across borders without any third party, yet it does not eliminate the use of banks at the same time as cited by Yaga et al.in their case study conducted in 2019.

In other words, before blockchain innovation came into existence, there was the use of traditional cross-border transactions, which needed intermediaries to facilitate the verification of transactions. This increased the cost of payment, fraud, insecurity and lack of transparency.

However, blockchain currently helps reduce such instances, as no intermediaries are needed, making transactions to be transparent, secure, easier, cost-effective, and faster as reported by Zheng et al.

Actually, individuals, including organizations can easily transfer money directly using the blockchain innovation from Bank X to Bank Y, which reduces time wastage and transaction cost, as no need to go through two other correspondent banks to complete the payments across the border.

Global Trend of Blockchain Technology in Nations

Typically, there is a wide range of evidence on the effectiveness and high cyber security provided by blockchain innovation.

It gives prompt maximization of sales and production, as evident in its usage in banks and government departments across the globe.

According to Sakız, and Gencer (2019), the rundown of nations adopting blockchain innovation is increasing.

For example, Sweden is presently trying the utilization of Blockchain to digitize land documents.

Dubai has declared that all administration reports ought to be secured with blockchain innovation.

Japan intends to utilize a blockchain stage to process government tenders, expelling the danger of digital assaults and information burglary.

The UK is testing blockchain innovation for government assistance installments. The Monetary Authority of Singapore is in action to test the utilization of Blockchain for interbank payments.

Factually, blockchain innovation will soon take over many business procedures, which will help maximize profit.

Sakız, and Gencer further posit that it is exhibited that this innovation could boost the global economy to US$1.76 trillion come 2030 by enhancing the levels of tracking of transactions, tracing, and trust among organizations.

The innovation will immensely benefit the public administration sectors, education sectors, and healthcare sectors among other sectors.

Disadvantages of Blockchain in Business Today 

However, despite the innumerable benefits of blockchain innovation, it also has its disadvantages that spread from the retailer, B2B, and cross-border transactions.

For instance, according to a study conducted by Gatteschi et al. in 2018, blockchain has scalability issues since it cannot be scalable due to its decentralized network.

For instance, when more nodes or individuals join the network during transactions, there are high chances of slowing down. This hinders both retailers, and cross-border and B2B transactions in most organizations.

Another issue is linked to its interoperability; in that, blockchain has multiple types of networks working separately, attempting to get rid of the distributed ledger technology issues in different means.

This results in interoperability problems since the connections may not communicate effectively to solve real-time issues. This can affect most transactions.

Another challenge that users encounter with blockchain innovation is the need for experts to help manage and implement blockchain projects since it is hard to find experts and its high cost of implementation.

One more serious issue with blockchain is related to the use of private keys; in that, a user who forgets its private key may find it difficult to get it back. Moreover, data is immutable and cannot be removed from the blockchain.

Last Remark

Blockchain innovation is a ledger of decentralized data that is shared securely. It provides the best secure alternative for businesses as it prevents innumerable data-related issues.

It provides transparent, secure, easier, cost-effective, and faster transactions making small and big businesses to maximize their profit.

Blockchain is the best emerging technology as greatly impacted the world bringing innumerable changes in the world as it has enabled effective retail, cross-border, and B2B transactions across the world.

Therefore, businesses today should start using Blockchain technology because it provides high security, traceability, and transparency, which maximize companies’ production and sales.