Blockchain Transformation: Tourism to business application

Linda Pawczuk, a principal with Deloitte Consulting, commented business ambition was shifting from “a focus on blockchain tourism and exploring the technology’s potential, to building practical applications”.

Global businesses are moving from blockchain research to applying the technology to current business challenges. It has been noted that this change will be taking place in the next 12 months.

Deliotte Consulting carried out a survey of more than 1,000 major global company executives. It was concluded that while commercial use of blockchain may still be limited, technology-minded executives have other plans.

The survey demonstrated that excellent-to-expert knowledge of blockchain technology by executives meant those businesses were “poised to make some major moves over the next year”.

“As more organisations put their resources behind this emerging technology, we expect blockchain to gain significant traction as its potential for greater efficiency, support for new business models and revenue sources, and enhanced security are demonstrated in real-world situations.” Pawczuk commented.

According to Deloitte’s results, 74% of executives surveyed see a “compelling business case” for the use of blockchain. Many of the 1,000 companies are moving forward with the technology.

34% of respondents said that their company are currently using blockchain in their business production. With 41% of them planning to implement blockchain in the next year, the movement is at the forefront of modern business.

Furthermore, around 40% of the surveyed executives expected investments of $5m upwards in blockchain technology in the coming 12 months.

To me, this demonstrates that in the coming year, we will see more and more blockchain activity in the commercial field and less blockchain tourism.

Yet, 22% of the global respondents – most notably 30% of US respondents – still lack a compelling reason to justify blockchain implementation in their business.

Following from this, Gartner found only 1% of CIOs were running blockchain projects. Only 8% were planning to implement the technology in the short term or were just experimenting with blockchain. These are not reassuring percentages. The CIO survey suggests there is a massively hyped state of blockchain adoption, David Furlonger reports.

Furlonger also highlighted many of the concerns with blockchain technology. This included; failed innovation, wasted investment, rash decisions and even rejection of game changing technology. In Deliotte’s survey, 39% of the global sample also believed blockchain was overhyped.

However, this seems to contradict Deloitte’s other findings including:

• 84% of respondents agreeing blockchain is broadly scalable and will reach mainstream adoption.
• 59% believe in blockchain’s potential to disrupt and revolutionise their industry. In turn, the overall economy
• 43% identify blockchain as one of their top five strategic priorities.

So, which is the most convincing survey? We should keep a look out for any developments over the next 12 months which suggest one or the other and a move away from blockchain tourism. Please leave your thoughts on which survey you think will be the most realistic below.