By Dan Gay
Chief Marketing Officer, BlockCerts Blockchain

After all of the hype and promise of blockchain, the cryptocurrency craze and even the wide-reaching predictions of blockchain, there is one overriding fact that will continue to accelerate its growth: savings.

Yes, blockchain will create trust in transactions. It will solve many issues that now plague the online world. It will also be revolutionary in providing a digital immutable record, removing the middleman in transactions and boasting a long list of features and benefits that the world is now coming to discover. Although, at the end of the day, cost reduction will drive adoption.

Compression Technology for Costs in a Business

I was in a client meeting with a leading CBD company just this week and one thing rang clear as I was listening to Tim Vasko, the founder of BlockCerts Blockchain, review next steps for the company. Vasko made a statement saying, “Blockchain is compression technology for costs in a business.” This statement really hit me as it encompassed the core reason for the tremendous growth we continue to see in the space. The blockchain cuts costs, plain and simple. It allows businesses to operate more efficiently, reduce administrative costs, automate functions, reduce busy-work, and it provides a view into a product’s journey as in seed-to-sale or chain-of-custody in this CBD client’s example.

If a business could streamline their operations, cut costs, do more with less, reduce fees that they’re currently paying, reduce charge-backs, minimize data breach exposures, eliminate fines and penalties, create better client and vendor relationships (which reduce disputes and legal issues saving even more money), there would be very few limitations to what the business could achieve.

That’s what the blockchain is all about, breaking down barriers. And according to research by Gartner, it is right on the money. As revealed in a recent report on Wall Street, blockchain investment is anticipated to reach $12.4 billion across all industries by 2022. No matter what industry you’re currently in; it is no longer a question of if the blockchain will transform your industry but instead, when?

Over the next few months we’ll be reviewing specific areas of cost reduction, cost savings and cost containment. We’ll review how our blockchain limits exposures, which relate to minimize losses, lost customers and vendors. Let’s start by first reviewing through the lens of disagreements.

Cost Containment Through Successful Agreements

Life’s a contract, right? It starts immediately when we’re born, we get a birth certificate. We’re then surrounded in our personal life with agreements and that is magnified in our businesses. Can we agree that if both parties to an agreement know exactly the expectations of the agreement and deliver upon those expectation, we’d rarely have a dispute?

What really happens: both parties sign an agreement, they put it in a file, they forget about it until later, time goes by and the parties get fuzzy on the details. One person thinks one thing, another thinks another. Dates are forgotten, the intent is lost, parties haggle and argue. This puts a strain on the relationship, whether it’s a customer, vendor or service provider. Many parties get involved wasting a lot of time and effort that could be spent doing something more productive. Customers can be lost quickly as the relationship deteriorates costing the business in lost revenues.

Disputes can then escalate and then attorneys get involved. Litigation then follows and the contract becomes very expensive for the business. More time is absorbed from your business that, again, could have been better spent building and growing.

There’s a better way. A Smarter Contract begins with the BlockCerts BCERTin™ smart agreement. Let’s start with the beginning of the contract and the common legal defense of the past, “I never signed the agreement” or “That’s not my signature”. If both parties go through a 3-step KYC authentication, receive a private key for their access, and each contact’s record is recorded with the location specific place they signed the contract, that argument won’t stand. Further, if a contract has files attached and instant message string attached, there is further proof of signature and intent. If other “viewers” or “signers” are also party to a contract, and all records are recorded on the immutable digital ledger, that argument becomes a thing of the past. 

Smarter Contracts can trigger updates to all parties and even payments based upon actions in a contract, which will make for better communication and follow-through. If anyone has a question about an agreement, all files, conversations, commitments are accessed within seconds and can be reviewed quickly to eliminate disagreements and to provide a cut-and-dry view of the agreement. A Smarter contract will not only save time, but it will save money in many, many ways!

Working on the ground floor of blockchain implementation across diverse industries, I am confident when I say that the answer to this question will always come back to savings. There is a plethora of benefits of the blockchain but cost reduction will be the main driver of adoption for businesses large and small working to achieve a higher purpose.