Beyond bitcoin use cases, immutable ledgers and blockchain-based smart contracts are already becoming practical in enterprise business contexts.
By 2024, IDC predicts that spending on blockchain technology will have surpassed $19 billion, demonstrating that businesses, governments, hospitals, and other institutions are beginning to invest more heavily in this technology. Third-party blockchain service providers are supporting the market even further by providing safe, private enterprise-grade solutions that will, according to MarketsandMarkets, grow to be worth $39.7 billion by 2025.
Let’s Understand The Basics Of Blockchain!
Blockchains are immutable, permanent digital “ledgers,” or records, of information. Instead of being copied to a single centralized point, such as a single server, they are intended to be peer-to-peer, without an intermediary, and distributed across decentralized machines.
Consider receiving an email with 100 recipients. The email will still be present in 99 other inboxes even if you remove it from your own. The email’s content cannot be changed because it is visible to everyone. It becomes immutable through that form of “distribution”.
Then there is the immediate nature of a transaction, be it a buy, a sell, a deed transfer, or a supply chain hand-off. You could do away with fees, holdups, processing waits, and third-party oversight if there was no middleman.
The Concept Of Enterprise Blockchain
Blockchain, according to Harvard Business Review, is a foundational technology rather than a disruptive one at this juncture. Blockchain will enhance rather than replace areas where there are inefficiencies, a lack of transparency, or vulnerabilities to fraud or expensive delays.
A “smart contract” is a conditional digital agreement that is safe, unbreakable, and enforceable. You can streamline and expedite a wide range of transactions if you combine that with the speed and transparency of blockchain. This is due to the fact that smart contracts can aid in:
Transparency And Traceability
Enhanced transaction visibility and verification, similar to an unalterable digital paper trail.
Fraud Proof Transactions
Transactions that are impermeable to fraud and tampering are more secure thanks to encryption. This can be quite advantageous for businesses that are subject to specific legal, privacy, or regulatory restrictions.
Cutting Costs
Automating some transactions and authorization/verification stages can save costs and operational overhead. Businesses can save billions of dollars in operating costs when tasks are completed more quickly and even autonomously (without risk).
Real World Use-Cases Of Enterprise Blockchain
Financial Services
1. Client Validation
Know Your Customer (KYC) is a labor-intensive, manual process with room for error. To confirm whether the customer has the necessary background to handle huge sums of money, the process comprises many reviewers.
You can finish the procedure more quickly, with greater transparency, with fewer checks of the sources of information, and most importantly, with a far better experience for the consumer by putting the entire KYC process on blockchain and including everyone involved.
- Data: Client background records
- Partners: Account managers, third-party researchers, auditors, financial reviewers, and clients
- Value: Enhanced client satisfaction
2. Reporting To Authorities
The fact that the data regulators want is scattered across numerous roles, including front-office staff at neighborhood branches and back-end systems engineers at bank headquarters, is one of the major obstacles in reporting on the banking industry.
- Data: Audit history
- Partners: Regulators (from various agencies
- Value: Decreased reporting costs
3. International Transactions
There are several middlemen, time-consuming form fills, and processing costs when sending money abroad. A communication from your bank is sent to an intermediary bank in another nation, which then sends a verification message to the receiving bank. Following a confirmation request, the information is sent back and the money is then transferred.
- Data: Financial transfer
- Partners: Banks in numerous nations
- Value: Better customer experience and lower transaction costs are two benefits.
Entertainment And The Media
4. Direct Payments From Fans To Artists
Have you ever wondered how your favorite musicians are compensated for online song streams? Numerous management and media outlets are involved.
They cut out the middlemen by integrating their music streaming software with the blockchain. They receive quick and transparent payment whenever their song is streamed.
- Data: Records of streaming music
- Partners: Customers and artists
- Value: Improved artist opportunities thanks to a new commercial strategy
5. Ticketing
Blockchain, which has smart contracts and complete transparency to transactions, may lock in ticket prices for the consumer and provide event organizers with a 360-degree perspective of concertgoers to enable them to provide individualized and pertinent experiences.
- Data: Ticket sales
- Partners: Event planners and independent retailers
- Value: Lower consumer prices and increased business campaign capabilities
6. Loyalty Initiatives
Today’s loyalty programs are fragmented. You probably belong to numerous that you never even use. What if you only needed one and could earn points for every purchase you made that you could then use as you pleased?
Multiple firms can easily be included in a single awards program thanks to blockchain’s network-driven architecture and transparent transactions. Integrations are less expensive, and companies from many sectors—hotels, airlines, coffee shops, even food trucks—can join forces to offer a single loyalty program to all of their clients.
- Data: Reward points, exchange rates
- Partners: Several companies from various industry
- Value: Improved customer experience; cheaper cost of cross-company integration
Allied Health And Life Sciences
7. Drug Labeling
It is simple, quick, and less expensive to update and maintain the labels by building a blockchain network where all parties may share information and give an immutable representation of the label.
- Data: Drug labeling
- Partners: Include pharmaceutical corporations, regulatory authorities, and advertising firms.
- Value: Accelerated label updates, reduced costs, and improved compliance
8. Electronic Medical Records
The same documentation must be completed each time you switch doctors. Additionally, finding all the data you require to complete the paperwork in one location might be challenging.
A distributed network of providers can share a patient’s electronic health records thanks to the architecture that blockchain offers.
- Data: Digital health records (or transactional data associated with them)
- Partners: Service providers and clients
- Value: Greater patient satisfaction and provider effectiveness
Commercial And Consumer Goods
9. Monitoring Product Sourcing
Retailers and their suppliers must certify that the goods they produce and sell are secure and adhere to all laws. Additionally, as buyers, we want to be certain that the things we buy come from ethical sources.
Both authorities and consumers have comprehensive visibility into the products’ certified source thanks to this technology.
- Data: Product movements
- Partners: Merchants, vendors, independent testing facilities, and logistical firms.
- Value: Ethical sourcing, managing costs, and client confidence
Insurance
10. Claims Administration
In order to assess damage, process a claim, and settle a claim, insurance claim processes can be complicated and drawn out. One of the main causes of customer churn and a major source of expense for the insurer is a bad claims experience.
With blockchain, insurers may establish a network where all parties engaged in evaluating, processing, and making decisions about a claim can access the same information. Additionally, they can automate payout when certain conditions are met by using smart contracts. Consider having your claim handled ten times more quickly. The possibility is that.
- Data: Consumer goods/products
- Partners: Claims processor, repair shop, and insurer
- Value: Quicker response and less expensive claims processing
Education
11. Earning Credentials And Degree Completion
With a Universal Learner Record enabled by blockchain, changing schools or studying abroad is made simpler. Consider a networked system where colleges and universities can store student transcripts in a single ledger to help ensure degree completion.
- Data: Academic institutions
- Partners: Universities and colleges
- Value: quicker document transfers and more seamless degree accreditations
Conclusion:
There will probably continue to be an increase in the number of enterprise blockchain development solutions.
As a result, enterprises will probably develop brand-new blockchain use cases in the coming years that we couldn’t have predicted today.
Which business operation in your company demands the use of blockchain technology? Blockchain business transformation is the direction we are all going. Do your research and join the future.