5 Blockchain Opportunities No

Company Can Afford To Miss

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Bernard Marr , CONTRIBUTOR Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

The blockchain phenomenon appears to be gathering pace as we head into 2018.

With big announcements from the likes of Kodak and Microsoft, it’s clear that there
are opportunities beyond finance where it has already taken a foothold.

But what are the opportunities for your business? To help start to answer that
question I have come up with five areas of activity where a move to distributed,
encrypted record keeping could provide a competitive edge.
Adobe Stock
Adobe Stock

Reducing costs

Banks and other financial institutions such as insurers have already moved to
investigate and adopt blockchain technology. Of course for them it may be a case of
survival as the concept is so disruptive to their traditional business model, the
danger is that if they don’t act, someone else will.
Banks and credit card companies charge around $2 trillion a year for providing
middle-man services such as clearing payments and fraud-checking. Moving to
blockchain systems can effectively automate much of this, bringing down costs.

But the characteristics of blockchain which make it so transformative in finance –

the transparency, reduced need for trust, and robust, immutable structure of data –
can help reduce financial burdens involved with making and recording transactions
in many other industries, too.

If centralized, unwieldy and unsecure ledgering and inventory systems can be

replaced with a streamlined, distributed blockchain system for record keeping, then
there will be reduced need for middle-man functions such as administration and
compliance-checking of those records.

Storing data on a blockchain also means it is more reliable. If this data is then being
used in your business analytics (e.g. machine data) it is more likely to be accurate
and yield insights which will align with real-world objectives.

Increasing traceability

In the food industry there is a huge demand for provenance.

Demonstrating that safety and welfare standards have been met at
every point of the supply chain is hugely important, for legal and
business reasons.

Blockchain has been given rise to the potential of every individual

ingredient or product effectively receiving its own “digital
passport”, meaning its origin and journey can be traced at any
stage of the process.

Traditionally these records will have been kept by a number of

different organizations – from growers to pickers, packagers,
retailers and deliverer – in a centralized fashion. This leaves
multiple points of potential failure, such as data loss, and possibly
invites fraudulent activity.

Blockchain has also been enthusiastically adopted by the diamond

industry – where provenance is also paramount. UK-based
Everledger has recorded details of more than 1.6 million of them
on a blockchain, storing data such as their size, color and
certificate number. High resolution imagery is used which means
diamonds can still be matched to their “digital twins” on the
blockchain, even if the unique identifying numbers which are
invisibly etched into the stones are removed. It plans to begin
doing the same with vintage wine in the near future.

Improving customer experience

Loyalty and reward programs encourage repeat custom and also

give access to invaluable insights into buying habits and trends.
Traditionally the data from these programs is collated centrally
rewards are issued in arrears, after administration and
processing.

Moving to a blockchain based system enables reward points to be

calculated and issued at the point they are earned. This not only
speeds things up, it potentially lets customers use the value in
their purchases to receive immediate discounts.

Several startups, such as Qiibee and Loyall, have brought

blockchain-based loyalty cards to the market, with the idea that it
will make it easier for customers to transfer and trade the value in
their freebie vouchers across different retailers.  This could lead to
reward and loyalty exchanges, where customers can choose to
invest their earned value in what they need right now, rather than
what they have previously spent money on. Overall this will lead
to happier and more satisfied customers.

Verifying ownership and proving identity

In the age of the internet where a picture can be copied and

distributed to a million people with a click of a mouse, keeping
track of property rights, intellectual and otherwise, has become a
nightmare. The international patenting system is horrendously
complicated too, with rules changing from country to country.

Kodak are currently making a comeback by positioning

themselves as a blockchain technology business. Recently they
announced a platform that will record and track usage of
photographs and images across the internet. It will allow image
rights holders to seek payment when their work is used without
permission, but is also designed to facilitate more transparent and
automated invoicing when a photographer/publisher relationship
is in place.

There are also hopes that blockchain will mean fairer payments
for musicians. The “think and do” tank Mycelia, founded by singer
and songwriter Imogen Heap, is investigating blockchain
contracts, IP management and payment solutions. But it isn’t just
intellectual assets which can be secured using blockchain.

The real estate market is bogged down in paperwork and legal

compliance procedures, which is inevitable when dealing with
large-value transfers. Mortgage applications and approvals often
take months due to the number of hands each application goes
through, with compliance and due diligence essential at every step
of the process. US-based Ubiquity offer a blockchain solution to
this problem, with a transparent and public ledger used to record
property titles and deeds.

Blockchain can also be used to establish identity and credentials.

Recruiters are used to dealing with embellishments or outright
lies from applicants, but it's a problem that can have expensive
long-term consequences.

In recruitment, a blockchain-based CV verification and matching

service has been launched, which claims it will drastically cut the
time taken by employers to check candidates’ qualifications and
experience. APPII hope that their platform - “The world's first
blockchain career verification platform”, will help overcome this.

Enhancing security

Blockchains are inherently more secure than many other file

storage systems because they are encrypted by design. Not only
this, but being distributed, no one has central control over the
database. The information can't be accidentally deleted and it
won't be accessible to anyone who isn't authorized to see it.

This means that if you handle sensitive data, or data which you
are obliged to store securely for a length of time, it's possible that
blockchain might be suitable for your purposes.

Blockchain's potential towards automation and removal of the

need for trusted middle-men also improves security by removing
potential points of failure, such as human corruptibility, from the
equation. Estonian data protection specialists Guardtime use
blockchain technology to secure the health records of one million
patients.

Security of online communications is another area where

advances have been made thanks to blockchain. Obsidian
Messenger takes a decentralized approach to cloud storage of
conversations and photographs. Rather than all the data from
everyone's conversations being stored at a data center, it is spread
across the computers of everyone running the Obsidian software,
and can only be reconstructed into messages and pictures by the
person with the private key (hopefully the person it is intended
for).

And if the promise of one startup comes to fruition, then large-

scale data breaches could be a thing of the past. The Edge Security
platform uses technology originally designed to protect wallets
which store Bitcoin – the digital currency responsible for kicking
off the whole blockchain craze in the first place. It believes that by
using blockchain methods to store encrypted data on client
devices, rather than centrally collating it at data centres, is key to
tackling the chaos caused by the millions of personal records
being stolen every year.

As you can see, there are many potentially powerful use cases that
could apply to most industries and I believe now is the time for
every business to consider the implications of blockchain
technology.
Bernard Marr is a best-selling author & keynote speaker on business, technology and big data.
His new book is Data Strategy. To read his future posts simply join his network here.