How Boeing, Toyota, Caterpillar, and other OEMs can double their current net profit by using smart contracts to become unmanned “virtual companies”, with or without cryptocurrency: Part 20 (End)
Conclusion
In conclusion, “virtual companies” represent a huge economic revolution. As discussed in part 7, OEMs have a multi-trillion-dollar global footprint. And as summarized by the reasons listed in part 1, the game has drastically changed for all of them.
The suppliers stand to greatly benefit too. Better reactivity, longer visibility, an OEM that is more in tune with their financial health, an OEM that sees the value of getting “beyond cost reduction” and shifting the focus towards collaborating for innovation, and 100% on-time payments.
Moreover, this revolution is not dependent upon cryptocurrency. A stablecoin does not need to emerge. As discussed in part 9, virtual companies can be realized by having Chain Link and the Ethereum network piggyback on the open banking APIs trends ushered in by PSD2.
Nor is this revolution dependent on legal recognition breakthroughs that are unlikely to happen in the near future. As discussed in part 17, the necessary legal hurdles are being rapidly cleared as we speak.
Nor is the disruptive potential limited to large, publicly traded companies. As discussed at the end of part 2, leveraging the power of the robot accountants might benefit SMEs even more than large corporations. After all, smart contracts even the playing field when it comes to disparities in invoicing, accounting, and operations muscle. Allowing SMEs to tackle business models of any complexity.
Nor is the disruptive potential limited to OEMs. The concepts discussed in this whitepaper are transferable to many other industries as well. In fact, pretty much any industry involving manufacturing or involving a supply chain. Preferably highly globalized industries with lots of B2B interactions. Anything from the production of electronics, circuit boards, and chips in East Asia to B2B ecommerce (both of which are also multi-trillion-dollar industries). The opportunities are endless!
In the more distant future, it is conceivable that the vast majority of companies will have become “virtualized” and that the majority of global B2B commerce is being conducted via smart contract. Assuming a single cryptocurrency emerges as the dominant choice, then it’s fair to call said cryptocurrency a “world engine”. Ethereum, MAN, Golem, and others are already “world computers”. If any one of them managed to someday become the common platform that powered the vast majority of global trade and manufacturing, then it’d become the beating heart of the world itself.
If a company could think ahead now, position itself to be the clear market leader for providing the most secure, well-audited, comprehensive, feature-rich, and convenient enterprise-ready smart contracts that OEMs could adapt to their needs (in a plug-and-play manner), and license out their ready-made smart contracts on a software-as-a-service basis (pay a subscription fee to our blockchain address to keeping using this contract) when the “world engine” future arrives, then said company could stand to make a tremendous amount of money. Exciting stuff.
Our very notion of what “companies” look like will be forever changed.
But more importantly than anything else, this revolution needs to happen with a human-centered focus. Recall part 2, we can spend the 21st century prospering beyond our wildest dreams while creating a workplace that allows humans to unleash their full passion and creativity. After all, customer-facing (B2C) functions can never be unmanned. Only humans can design products and services that human consumers will emotionally connect with and actually want to buy.
In the long run, there will be more jobs and more fun jobs. But in the short term, the path to get there will displace a lot of jobs (as is always the case with any quantum leap in automation).
Hopefully the revolution can happen gradually enough. It takes an entire generation of people for the work force to evolve its skill set. Hopefully the education system understands the tectonic upheaval that is coming and properly prepares students for the future.
The future is bright and the future is human, but it will take a lot of due diligence and hard work to ensure it stays so.
“Is our world gone? We say farewell. Is a new world coming? We welcome it, and we will bend it to the hopes of man”-Lyndon Baines Johnson
Appendix A: Smart contract automation of Wall Street
https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-ethereumization-of-wall-street-is-inevitable-expert-take
Appendix B: Parametric micro-insurance for farmers
https://www.coindesk.com/inclusive-insurance-businesses-see-blockchain-change-enabler/
Appendix C: Fake data
“84% of banking professionals surveyed said they are increasingly using data for critical and automated decision making, however 78% believe these automated systems create new risks such as fake data, external data manipulation.
Whilst banks have always held large volumes of confidential data, the report found that they are increasingly adding data from external, unstructured sources. Only 11% trust their data is reliable, but do not validate it. 16% said they try to valid the data, however are not sure of its quality and 24% do validate the data but recognise that they need to do more to ensure its quality.
The majority of respondents were C-level executives and directors at companies with annual revenues of at least USD 500 million, with most having annual revenues greater than USD 6 billion, according to Information Age.”-https://www.thepaypers.com/digital-identity-security-online-fraud/banks-vulnerable-to-fake-data-accenture-report-reveals/772863-26
https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/31978/fake-data-will-make-banks-vulnerable---accenture
Appendix D: B2B vs B2C market size
“Business-to-business (B2B) applications can create more value than pure consumer applications. While consumer applications such as fitness monitors and self-driving cars attract the most attention and can create significant value, we estimate that B2B uses can generate nearly 70 percent of potential value enabled by IoT. “-The Internet of Things: Mapping the Value Beyond the Hype by McKinsey
“B2B business is now dwarfing that of the B2C [e-commerce] business”-https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/global-ecommerce-statistics
Appendix E: What are APIs?
“If you have ever used a power socket you will quickly grasp the basic idea of an API. Instead of needing to understand the whole electrical grid, you only need to understand that a plug goes into a socket and your devices work. An API can do something very similar, where a complex system can be made easily accessible through a commonly understood point of entry. The API transforms a complex ‘electrical grid’ into a simple power socket”-https://hackernoon.com/how-the-api-economy-is-poised-to-revolutionize-the-blockchain-9e13678041fe
The global API economy was estimated to be worth $2.2 trillion at the end of 2018.
APIs are behind just about everything. For $1.50 per thousand predictions, you can even use Microsoft’s Azure Face API to enable any (IoT-connected) camera to perform facial recognition with artificial intelligence: https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/how-to-build-an-autonomous-voice-controlled-face-recognizing-drone-for-200.