The first thing that will come to many minds when they hear ‘Blockchain’ is ‘Cryptocurrency’ and its dubious utility and scary volatility! That, however, is a very unjust and narrow view of the Blockchain technology that is just recently emerging. Cryptocurrency is an important development of Blockchain, but Blockchain is a lot more than just Bitcoin or Ethereum. It holds the potential to change nearly everything concerning the way people do business. Therefore, it is now necessary to understand how Blockchain will change everything.

What Exactly is Blockchain?

To put it simply, Blockchain is a large and growing database containing blocks of information that are stored in a decentralized manner across millions of computers (nodes). Once information is created and stored in these blocks, it cannot be altered in any way. These blocks are linked to each other, thus forming a chain of blocks using cryptography.

Originally invented as a public transaction ledger for the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, most people probably did not ponder over how Blockchain will change everything. Since it is decentralized and tamper-proof, blockchain has some attractive features of safety, transparency, and reliability, which makes it a wonderful tool for businesses.

How Blockchain for Business Can Work Wonders

Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency saw exponential growth for a while before eventually plummeting. The fact that companies such as Expedia and Microsoft along with many others decided to accept Bitcoin as a legal currency is proof of its impressive benefits. But we are not going to talk about cryptocurrency. We will instead discuss how the core nature of Blockchain can greatly improve the way businesses operate. Let's take a look at them one-by-one.

1. Better Marketing

Marketing is an inevitable investment in any business. It, however, isn't as straightforward as the purchasing of resources, and it can often be an unpredictable practice. Marketers are continuously trying to make marketing more effective by extracting the maximum benefit from each cent spent.

Blockchain eliminates the middlemen from marketing and ensures that every click or view of your ad or article is genuine. A key feature of blockchain is transparency by verifying the information about who is viewing your content. This means robotic activities can no longer mislead you. It also means reduced costs for your marketing campaign.

2. More Reliability in Human Resources

Hiring new employees demands a careful examination of each candidate and verification of their qualifications and certifications. According to Inc.com, a staggering 85% of job applicants lie on their resumes. Add fake degrees to this and it becomes even scarier.

With the advent of Blockchain, academic records, extra-curricular achievements, and awards can be stored on non-modifiable digital ledgers. This may take us to an age where resumes will be outdated and may not even be needed. Using Blockchain for business will allow employers to have transparent employee data and access to potential employees at their fingertips.

3. Enhanced Safety and Clarity

The decentralized nature of Blockchain also brings immense safety in using it for business. Today, most money is simply digital data about who owns what. This data, when stored at a single point, is extremely vulnerable to perils of cyber-crime. But when this data is simultaneously stored on multiple nodes in a cryptographic blockchain, it becomes nearly impossible to hack or steal digitally.

Blockchain can also be used to design 'smart contracts', which are digital contracts stored on immutable 'blocks' in the form of a code. This means the terms of the contract cannot be altered. More importantly, they are automated for payments, meaning payments will be executed only after the defined parts of the deal are fulfilled. Or, it can also mean the automated return of your products if the other party backs out of the payment.

4. Simpler Accounting

Besides contracts, using cryptocurrency can also bring more clarity to payments. It will keep creating blocks of payment history like keeping track of your employee payments, for example. This means there will be automated digital ledgers that cannot be altered or erased, making accounting a lot easier as well as more ethical. Another benefit of blockchain is that it can also facilitate automatic tax payments, meaning paying the exact tax at the right time.

5. Higher Accountability for All Players

In the words of Futurist and TEDx speaker Ian Khan, "Blockchain truly is a mechanism to bring everyone to the highest degree of accountability." Blockchain can save your company from missed transactions and other common human or machine errors. Obtaining any data required at any time will be possible; for example, you can pull a list of all guest lectures organized or total attendance data in an academic year in a university.

Blockchain will guarantee the validity of transactions by storing information about them on a large decentralized network. This means you can say goodbye to fake transaction data.

Apart from the ones mentioned above, there are a few other areas of use that add to the answer of how Blockchain will change everything. Some other areas include:

● Digital identity security

● Intellectual property safety

● Cloud storage

● Supply chain related proof-of-provenance

● Business intelligence and data analytics

Understand the Real Value of Blockchain

It is high time we put aside the old perception of Blockchain and uphold the new one focusing on its amazing abilities. Blockchain takes away the negative aspects of traditional enterprise handling such as financial risks and information management. It can make marketing campaigns more efficient and give better control to businesses. With proper development and proper coupling with project management software, it can completely transform businesses.

Blockchain takes away the need of third-party organizations as well as middlemen from almost everything in business today; from payment gateways all the way to advertisements. This increases trust and reduces costs. So if you haven't thought about Blockchain yet, it's about time you do now!

About the Author: David is a technical writer, his works are regularly published in various papers and top-notch portals. His rich experience in project management software helps him offer latest and fresh perspective on improved efficiency in workflows across organizations. His informative works on similar lines can be viewed on ProProfs Project.

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