Where have all the use cases gone?
Blockchain is an interesting new technology that contributes to solving many of today’s challenges in a creative way. However, it’s not all its made out to be.
I’ve been observing the Blockchain ecosystem for almost three years now. However, the more I’ve read about the technology and the more I’ve applied it in various situations at work, the more it is losing its fascination.
Blockchain is what it is: A great but simple technology — wrapped in a cloud of mystery and exaggerated expectations.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to undermine Satoshi Nakamoto’s contribution Bitcoin and its various successor crypto-currencies. They make a difference and have left a proverbial dent in the universe. However, here Blockchain is used to solve a specific problem: Value transfer, respectively electronic cash. You will also find various interesting solutions built on top of a Blockchain that go far beyond the original focus of creating an alternative currency (e.g. securing health records, tracking diamonds, etc.). Disintermediation respectively decentralization can bring in fundamentally different means to structure and operate organizations, data, and value streams.
Start-ups and established corporations are bringing out initiatives at an increasingly rapid pace, and you can observe that a large fraction of these are primarily focused on finding use cases to apply a Blockchain solution. The underlying claim is that Blockchain will change anything and the initiative will completely “reinvent things”. Maybe it will. But this assumption is risky because if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail (ref).
To be clear, that approach is valid if your focus is primarily on research. But if you want to make a difference in your industry, you need to start at the other end of the story and begin, quite conventionally, from the value generation side and work towards the solutions.
Pro-Tip for start-ups: If you’re on a quest for use cases, don’t postpone the problem by building a platform to solve them later. That rarely works.
There are certainly more situations where decentralization and disintermediation will make a difference and this should motivate people and organizations to take Blockchain into consideration as a solution. But in these cases, Blockchain will stand out in the solution finding process, because it really made a difference and it beat other options.
A Blockchain can be the answer, but it never is the reason!
Looking at it from a different perspective, banks, insurance companies, car manufacturers, utilities providers, or any other business should not fear Blockchain or decentralization itself. It is not the best choice per default just because some claim it is the hottest new technology. Businesses should, if at all, be scared of flaws in their business models and in the way, they operate today. There are various ways to solve these challenges — and Blockchain is just one of them (with a still low technological maturity).
Next steps
This article is the first in series of strategic advice on Blockchain which we will publish here soon. Additionally, we will be publishing our corresponding research on d15n.net.
- Where have all the use cases gone?https://medium.com/@mkuhnt/where-have-all-the-use-cases-gone-88a68591d3e
- Showcase: Flipping the trust model for data that your car produces. [coming soon]
- Strategic decision making in the advent of disintermediation. [coming soon]
- Showcase: Resource allocation and distribution in large and loosely coupled organizations. [coming soon]
- Real time strategy and execution — The end of strategy consulting as we know it today. [coming soon]
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Disrupt Consulting is a cooperative of strategic advisors, agile coaches and technologists. We develop strategies for the 21st century and drive necessary transformations.
