launcht Businesses that embrace modern digital technologies see significantly higher growth margins than those that are slow to adopt them. But while large companies like Microsoft and IBM are already applying blockchain to their infrastructures, small businesses are lagging when it comes to implementing the technology. Data has become the lifeblood of business, but companies of all sizes are limited when it comes to what information they can acquire and from whom they can acquire it.
Amazon and few other behemoths have cornered the market when it comes to acquiring and selling data. Blockchain’s distributed ledger offers full transparency, so buyers and sellers can see the source of any information, and whether it has been tampered with. Ultimately, this means internet giants will no longer be the only trusted source for data and small businesses can now begin to reap the benefits.
If small businesses can share data with one another directly, they can make a wider variety of it available at a lower cost, provided there are privacy mechanisms in place when it comes to how the information is used. Direct data commerce means smaller businesses can get more types of trusted information at a lower cost, and then better target their promotions and advertisements. This in turn means their ad budgets can come down significantly.
When small businesses team up through direct data exchange, there will also be new and unexpected benefits to consumers. Blockchain will bring transparency and trust to online transactions, but its influence will likely be far more disruptive than that. It will give consumers more choice and enable smaller businesses to slash costs by working together directly that will challenge the dominance of much larger rivals.
