Blockchain is a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network. An asset can be tangible (a house, car, cash, land) or intangible (intellectual property, patents, copyrights, branding). Virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded on a blockchain network, reducing risk and cutting costs for all involved [1].
Blockchain technology is transforming how companies operate. Its technology provides safety, speed, and transparency. Nowadays, the adoption of blockchain by enterprises has allowed optimizing the way of managing processes. The Blockchain transparency mechanism makes possible to verify and validate transactions and how information has been modified or created in the process.
The initial focus on Blockchain technology was in the finance sector, but it is showing more potential in manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, supply chains and logistics. Blockchain technology enables new business models, innovative organizational forms and work processes.
Today, applications of Blockchain technology are emerging across all sections of society and industry. The finance sector is using blockchain to simplify business processes while creating safe, trustworthy records of agreements and transactions. In the industrial sector, manufacturing companies requires to define and reshape their core value drivers enabled by digital technologies. The industry of the future will grow opportunities through innovation and customized solutions to increase customer value. Blockchain will add the possibility to track the necessary information about management and products for market that require even more traceability such as healthcare, manufacturing parts and military products. It can be constructed with the information collected by cameras and sensors, more information than could possibly be collected by a human in a short amount of time.
Another potential application is the use of the inherent encryption of a blockchain. This could potentially protect some of the data sent over a public network from unauthorized viewing or manipulation. They will ultimately lead to completely new business models and service offerings enabled through digitalization.
On the other hand, the combination of blockchain with cyber-physical systems through integration with Industry 4.0 technology platforms such as the Internet of Things, Robotics, 3D Printing, Augmented Reality and Smart Sensors. Industrial and business models are being designed based on these end-to-end services that are completely interconnected and secure using Blockchain technology. For a large enterprise, the cost of implementing blockchain technology in their core business operations wouldn’t represent a high cost. On the contrary, the costs would be lower as using blockchain brings several advantages such as optimization, automatization and no intermediaries
Without doubt Blockchain is called to add value to the digitalization of the industry, services and society in the coming years, but an import question is how this will be impacting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in ecosystem where large companies have biggest budget to expend in disruptive paradigm as Blockchain. According with many experts, the adoption of Blockchain technology in SMEs would be a great asset also and it will not mean a considerable increase in implementation costs.
An important aspect to be considered will be the automatization capability of blockchain-based solutions. Operations such as inventory or payroll could be done automatically, saving human resources efforts and as a result, saving money that would be allocated monthly for salaries. Therefore, can be used tools and applications to pay suppliers or remote employees in a way that is faster, more secure, and lower cost than traditional methods It will reduce also the operational costs by eliminating intermediaries. Furthermore, an important fact would be the transparency that blockchain generates for information and final products traceability.
Cloud services is another useful application of this technology that offers free storage capacity to all small and medium scale businesses. It allows SME to scale indefinitely, ensuring trust and safety at the same time. This means the access to lower-cost cloud storage solutions as distributed cloud storages.
Basically, the true believer of blockchain technology assume that it will improve how operations are done in enterprises. Especially, SMEs will be adopting blockchain to improve the management of raw materials, production and economic adjusted to their needs. And it is for a fact that implementing this technology will optimize processes and save costs. Based on all the explained before, there are some of the main reasons why blockchain will be growing so fast as one of the key technologies that will boost SMEs in current decade.
In future posts, we will be continue writing about technology and business trends for enterprises. Furthermore, we recommend consulting the following literature to continue your digital transformation journey:
- Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success, MIT review
- The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives, by Simon & Schuster
- Artificial Intelligence: The Insights You Need, by Harvard Business Review
- The Year in Tech, 2021: The Insights You Need, by Harvard Business Review
- The Deep Learning Revolution, by MIT Press
- Competing in the Age of AI, by Harvard Review Press
The objective of this blog is to provide a personal vision of how digital transformation trends will be impacting in our daily activities, businesses and lifestyle.
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[1] https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/what-is-blockchain
By Alberto Villalonga 
Researcher, his research interest includes machine learning, Industry 4.0, Internet of things, and cyber-physical systems.
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