How Can I Utilize Blockchain Technology in my Business?

If you are a newbie, you must have heard your high-sounding friends talk about blockchain and cryptocurrencies or better still “Bitcoin” which is more common place. Most people heard the buzzword “Bitcoin” even before they heard about the technology that enables it – Blockchain technology. Essentially, Blockchain is a glorified distributed DATABASE “copped” on several computers at the same time. Technically, it is an incorruptible virtual ledger of transactions. It can be programmed to register just  about any valuable thing.

Because I overshare, I’d go on to explain this technology in a simpler form. Really, the tech is a more proficient medium of saving or storing pieces of information. The good thing is that it stores the information based on everyone’s knowledge, agreement and point of view, not just one participant’s POV. Let us use the tiktok video as an example. When you make one tiktok video and share it with your friends. I want to believe that it is the exact same video you make that is viewed by your fans. Now in relation to Blockchain, this technology makes sure that the data stored by a participant is what is accessed by the other participants without giving the opportunity of tampering with it. In a lot of words, this means that two parties sharing a piece of information or document will always be handling the exact same copy of that information or document. This technology offers an audit trail that all participants can see live.

The innovation of this nascent technology originated from the combo of multi-disciplinary fields to wit: software engineering, cryptographic science, distributive computing, and economic game theory. Frankly, you do not need to have technical knowledge of the above before you can take good advantage of Blockchain, especially in our present world where paradigms are shifting at the speed of thought.

That being noted, I’d go straight to how you can maximize this technology in your everyday business be it a small, big or middle sized business.

Credible Employee Background Check

The hassles that come with employing the wrong person due to inadequate information can be extinguished with the use of this technology of trust. An Employer may use this nascent tech to ascertain a would-be employee’s work history. If indeed he or she has worked where (s)he said (s)he has. The employer can directly go on to ascertain job titles, tenures and other important issues. If you are a business owner who has had to work with difficult employees who lied about their qualifications, you know how much of a breakthrough this is!

Authentication of Title Deeds:

This is good news to those in the Real Estate sector; with the application of blockchain, problems of ownership, title, and search of who has interest in land will almost be nonexistent. One real estate company that has delved into using Blockchain in this sector is UBITQUITY. UBITQUITY offers a really user-friendly experience for securing, tracking and transferring deeds. It also enables real estate, title and mortgage companies benefit from a clean record of title, ownership, and also reducing time of searching for title. The UBITQUITY product fosters transparency and confidence. 

There really is no need for the current use of papers to register information about landed properties anymore. With Blockchain, a real estate company has the luxury of being able to sell its shares on a Cryptocurrency exchange. Landlords may now sell portions of their properties to the public via new blockchain innovations. By using “smart contract”, property owners may now sell off their properties with far lower chances of fraud. 

Credible Supply Chain Management.

The use of Blockchain here will enable business owners to ascertain every contributor to a business supply. Essentially, you get to know who your supplier’s suppliers are and every hand that your supply passed through. The use of Blockchain ensures transparency by giving a business owner credible information about every company that’s had a hand in innovating, developing, or producing any component of a commodity it sells or service it renders. This way you know who a risk falls on when an injury occurs. Also, a company can also prevent buying counterfeits by employing Blockchain. A good illustration for this is a Lipstick product that has gone viral for using only natural products. Your company can trace every single process involved in the production of the lipstick if it is registered on a blockchain (aka Distributed Ledger Technology). In a lot of words, Blockchain will allow you to verify the authenticity of the representations of your suppliers.

Media and Content Distribution:

Good news to Artistes, authors and creatives! Problems of Copyright violations are mitigated when Blockchain is used in this sector. A very good example of a product taking advantage of this technology is Ascribe. Ascribe helps artists and creatives to attribute digital art with the use of Blockchain. Ascribe generates digital editions of the Artwork with a unique identity and a virtual certificate of authenticity. The product also allows receiving of consignments from artists and transferring digital works to collectors with all the terms and conditions that apply. 

Blockchain technology is definitely a game changer and can be used in every sector of the economy. It has enabled faster payments methods, more credible identification and authentication processes, e-voting, provided a more inclusive capital market participation and if this technology is disrupting the world as we know it, I bet you want your business to hop on this train too so as to be relevant in the coming years.