Navigating from Blockchain Hype to Hyper-implementation!

Blockchain, often regarded as the next generation of Information Technology transformation, has been gaining rapid momentum the world over. Personally, I would like to consider Blockchain as the next generation of business transformation as it has a great potential to be the preferred cradle to incubate and nurture digital business / companies. Over the years, when businesses transitioned from the 'offline world' to 'online world', companies the world over have been either force fitting their offline processes or transforming them marginally to meet the requirements of an online business. However, all this is bound to change with Blockchain technically known as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that has been purely invented to power online businesses that are either massively or moderately connected or help the offline businesses to leverage the network effect through a collaborative play.

Blockchain is no more limited to just a conference hot topic or an analyst report or conceptual board room discussions. The time for this technology to languish in a contained testing environment has long ended. There are indications that companies across industry verticals encompassing diverse areas such as Consumer Products and Manufacturing, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Technology, Media and Telecommunications, Financial Services have actively deployed Blockchain solutions in the year 2017 and will continue to do so in the current year.

With crypto currencies such as Bitcoin (the world's first application of a Blockchain in a public environment), Ethereum have touched a peak market valuation of USD 800 billion and with the advent of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) that have successfully raised over USD 5 billion Blockchain is not certainly just a speck of a random activity that is occurring in an obscure corner in the world of global business. While the hype with Blockchain continues in the B2C world, its time for hyper implementation of Blockchain in the B2B world for accomplishing Transformative, Collaborative and BPR driven improvements and redefining Customer Experience.

If your business is looking at internalizing Blockchain; the transformative journey certainly requires that you get the fundamentals right to reap the benefits.

In this context, I propose a model called 'AIM - Awareness, Imbibing / Implementing and Managing' that helps you AIM right for getting the fundamentals right.

Creating Awareness - The top and mid management of the company may be at the varying levels of awareness and understanding of Blockchain primarily the concept, its advantages, the pros and cons. Hence the first and the foremost task is to bring everyone on the same level of understanding. This can be accomplished through several initiatives such as socializing Blockchain amongst the management layer with the help of a seasoned Subject Matter Expert. For instance, several companies have organized deep immersion sessions on Blockchain involving Chairman, SBU Heads and other CXOs to understand the Blockchain landscape in their respective industries. These sessions have resulted in identification of several business areas that had a strong potential for Blockchain implementation.

Another method of creating awareness is through benchmarking with peer companies either in Domestic or International markets and identify those who have had a deep immersion or adoption of DLT.

Imbibing and Implementing

There are number of Blockchain consortiums / alliances that are active globally - R3 Corda, EWF (Energy), B3i (Insurance), Hyper Ledger, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance are some such well known alliances. Most of these alliances are a combination of Public - Private forums, with memberships constituted of cross section of companies. It is also quite possible that a technology partner of a particular company is an existing member of this alliance.

By becoming a member of one of these alliances, one can obtain wealth of information about various projects and identify the one that is most relevant to one's company especially in addressing any pain points that are currently endemic to the business. After a particular project or pilot has been identified, one can bank on their existing technology partner to identify a suitable solution. The most probable areas for implementing Blockchain are the areas where the information exchange is sub optimal with all the involved parties. A Blockchain can certainly be considered as a viable substitute where Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) cannot be extended and implemented to cover entire ecosystem of parties interacting with a company.

Managing  

The solution could vary from utilizing a Public Blockchain or Consortium Blockchain or a Private Blockchain depending on the number of parties (vendors, partners, customers, branch offices) involved, geographical location of these parties. The good thing about Blockchain is that 1) most of them are built using open source platforms 2) allows usage of existing infrastructure especially the network servers and 3) it utilizes coding languages such as C++, Java Scripts, Node JS, Angular whose skills may be resident in existing technical workforce within a company.

Finally a word of caution, Blockchain could be just one of the several solutions that may be available to address business problems. Hence it is suggested that a proper evaluation of other feasible solutions to be carried out before finalizing on Blockchain based solution. Fancy towards Blockchain shouldn't be a driver for implementation, it should primarily be functionality and feasibility that foster and strengthen customer experience.