According to a recent research study, blockchain technology is able to change business models.
The research, entitled “The impacts of Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain on business models”, will be presented on November 15th and 16th during the fifth edition of the Strategy Innovation Forum (SIF) of Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, on the occasion of Venice Innovation Week.
13% of the sources analysed, claim that the blockchain will have an important impact on the business world, for example by tracking the ownership of assets in real-time, or by increasing the transparency of transactions or the reliability of the information that is exchanged between the various parties.
Artificial intelligence, accounting for 23% of the sources analysed, will also have a significant impact, for example by reducing human error and accidents at work, as well as increasing productivity.
Even more relevant will be the impact on the internal processes of companies, where the blockchain will be able to allow the automation of data exchange processes, reducing transaction costs and increasing security in the processing of sensitive data, for 21% of the sources analysed.
In particular, thanks to the use of smart contracts it will be possible to eliminate many paper documents, activate the automatic negotiation of prices, even in real-time, and ensure the digital identities of the various parties that interact in the markets. The consequence will be an increase in the speed of information exchange and contract execution.
However, this will not only produce changes in the technical field and in the operating models of companies but also in their internal business models, thanks to the improvement of efficiency, quality and speed of decision-making and execution. This will allows doing the same things operationally, but more effectively.
The sectors most affected by these innovations based on distributed ledgers will be the financial and health sectors.
According to 28% of the sources analysed, the financial sector will be revolutionised directly, thanks to the very nature of this technology, which will reduce the costs and risk of fraud and money laundering, while at the same time increasing trust and security.
According to 15% of the sources analysed, in the healthcare sector, there will be an increase in the administrative efficiency of the registers currently in use, and in the ease of access to historical data of patients, while protecting their privacy.
Thus the blockchain will provide substantial benefits in terms of privacy, accessibility and decentralisation, but still remain poor in terms of efficiency, flexibility and prediction, while artificial intelligence will bring greater efficiency, humanisation and prediction. According to the research, the combination of these two technologies will merge their respective strengths to trigger the next digital revolution.
The professor of strategic innovation at the University Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Carlo Bagnoli, commented:
“In the last two years, the consulting companies have published over half a million reports on the possible impacts of AI and Blockchain at the corporate level. The commercial goals of these reports lead, however, to pay less attention to the rigour of the methods of analysis adopted and to emphasise more the implications on the operating model, rather than on the business model of the companies. As a result, there’s a greater exploration of possibilities offered by these technologies to improve efficiency, quality and decision-making and executive speed, in other words, to do the same things, but more effectively. The research behind this report investigates, with scientific rigour, the possible impact of AI and Blockchain on the strategy and business models. The ambition is to consider how these technologies can allow doing different things, as well as the same things in different ways”.
