A few years ago, what began as the basis of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, blockchain technology is becoming popular across various industries. Its capability of recording and verifying massive amounts of data being a virtual ledger is helping organizations to erase data silos and maintain records with superior accuracy and efficiency.
According to CB Insights' Market Sizing Tool, the annual spending on blockchain applications will reach nearly $16B by 2023. It won't be incorrect to say that Bitcoin's popularity revealed the blockchain applications' power and capability to the world, and entrepreneurs worldwide are now bringing in their expertise to transform many more industries through blockchain. Below are some sectors poised to leverage blockchain and transform their businesses.
Blockchain Industrial Applications
Automotive
The automobile industry has been and is a vital cog in the giant wheel of the global economy for close to a century. The automotive business ecosystem, from part suppliers to manufacturers, safety regulators, and customers, relies on a network of information and transactions through the entire lifecycle. The amount of data such as changing hardware details about the initiation and location of defective parts that automotive companies keep track of is massive, and blockchain helps not just by facilitating such transactions for payments but also is a means to store information about the car, like ownership details, movement of parts and history of usage. Blockchain helps build transparency and efficiency in the automotive business processes.
Amo, a blockchain platform, connects cars, people, and service providers through an integrated database where users can monetize their weekend drives or other trips with just a click. Similarly, BigChainDB develops an ownership transfer service called CarPass that centralizes all information about a vehicle to prevent fraud. The pass includes title, service providers, prior damage, maintenance, and inspection history.
Supply Chain
In any industry, delivering products at the right time and at a reasonable cost is a prime requirement in the supply chain industry. It requires seamless collaboration, coordination, and, most of all, a trustworthy network across the value chain of suppliers, producers, banks, regulators, logistics providers, and retailers. Moreover, the recent disruptions in the industry have led to increased costs, less profitability, and high reliability on data across the network. Here's where blockchain technology brings in a secure, error-free, and trustworthy transactional environment for the entire supply chain ecosystem. It infuses visibility, trust, transparency, and resiliency across all stakeholders in the supply chain network.
One of the examples of using blockchain in the supply chain industry is Walmart, JD.com, and Tsinghua University coming together to bring in more transparency and delivery and shipment efficiency. The project was started, especially keeping in mind how one needs to track and throw out the entire inventory if an epidemic disease comes forth. As the project progressed, other big companies like Nestle, Unilever, and Tyson Foods also showed interest in jumping in.
Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance
Banks and financial services companies are critical information storehouses and hubs for data transfer. The secure ledger that blockchain provides with enhanced information sharing has encouraged the industry to embrace the technology with open arms. In the world of insurance, contracts are to be made and stored with the utmost integrity to avoid any trust deficit between the insurer, the broker, and the customer. Insurance platforms are increasingly taking to blockchain to help improve the insurance value chain while increasing revenue and customer satisfaction. Blockchain technology allows faster payments, safer exchanges, and efficient and systematic records storage. Blockchain applications will improve security, offer better infrastructure and ease of doing business to the entire ecosystem.
Cambridge Blockchain and Trade are fintech startups using blockchain-based customer identification systems. Similarly, Lumeno.us, a New York-based startup provides blockchain technology financial services to business owners for securely sharing their data to get a loan, find trusted partners, or manage a portfolio or network.
Government
Blockchain technology makes the private sector dependable and transparent across food, supply chain, financial services, energy, and more. In the case of government, the business is conducted in similar ways, and the needs of efficient processes, high security, better collaboration, and data integrity stay the same. They often find technology disruption a hindrance, but blockchain can change that and be pivotal to industries' needs. Some of the few areas where Blockchain technology is bringing transformation are managing employee records, storing land records, managing, and tracking international mail, supply chain, and asset management. Blockchain offers reliability, affordability, transparency, and efficiency in sharing data between multiple institutions and individuals.
Estonia, a European digital country, uses blockchain technology to enforce the integrity of government data and systems. It uses blockchain across the industries to offer well-developed e-government systems and has tagged itself with central government functions and municipalities to provide online services.
Healthcare and Life Sciences
When it comes to healthcare and life sciences, blockchain plays a massive role in ensuring safe and secure storage of patients' records, enabling the seamless management of the supply chain of medicines and other medical equipment, making billings easier, and helping healthcare researchers by handling deception in clinical trials.
For example, Atlanta-based Patientory Inc. has developed a blockchain-based platform to secure health data for patients, providers, and medical institutions. The application lets users create a patient profile to keep track of their health history. The software provides patients with an effortless way of tracking doctor visits, medical bills, personal medical information, insurance, immunizations, and pharmacy medications.
Media and Advertising
In the growing media and advertising industry, digital theft relating to online music thefts online advertising frauds are a concerning matter, but with the adoption of blockchain technology, the risk could be reduced significantly. Blockchain minimizes piracy related frauds and transforms how we look at intellectual property rights. Also, it would mean an overall reduction in costs by having one platform for management, payments, and billing. Blockchain applications bring full transparency to digital transactions with distributed ledgers delivering trust to the industry while reducing costs, eliminating intermediaries, and releasing new value across supply chains.
A Colorado-based Rebel AI fights ad fraud with a blockchain-enabled, cryptographic verification system for advertisers and marketers to prevent domain spoofing, i.e., unverified ad networks or fraudulent websites that hinder marketing traffic data.
Telecommunications
Security, control, data immutability, and transparency, the four invaluable pillars of the Telecom industry are gained by the use of blockchain industrial applications. From managing roaming partner settlements, identity management, SLA monitoring, theft prevention that allows the immediate blocking of stolen devices to easy MNP service, the possibilities that interaction between telecommunication and blockchain would bring in are numerous. All of this, when brought together, would help create a better user experience, and business models can be improved to help increase the margins of profit.
A Japanese startup Telcoin uses blockchain to help telecommunication operators provide money transfer services. Telcoin Wallet is created on the Ethereum blockchain, and mobile users make worldwide transactions instantly, despite their local mobile service providers.
Travel and Transportation
This industry has many players, many different moving parts of the cycle, and a variety of challenges for land, air, and sea. Errors, complexity, or transactions disputes occur very often in this industry, and multiple parties are affected simultaneously. The incorporation of
blockchain technology speeds transactions, eradicates fraud, and helps simplify transportation operations with a steadfast, reliable, secure system that re-emphasizes trust among parties.
On the consumer side, blockchain allows potential customers to book all their tickets on a single platform while paying no additional surcharges and long-standing queues at airports. Some names that have successfully implemented the blockchain industry application to revolutionize travel are Winding Tree, Webjet, Sunblock, and Accenture.
Blockchain applications have also found their footprint amongst Manufacturing, Retail & CPG, and Oil & Gas industry, and its benefits are leading to waves of adoption of blockchain technology like never before. Experts believe that innovators are only just beginning to scratch the surface of blockchain applications, and we're still at the beginning of a long road of disruptions across industries. In the next blog of the series, we will be digging deep into the future of blockchain technology in the years to come.
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