Blockchain & Its Application in Marketing - Part 3

This is the third and the last post in the series of three posts on Blockchain Technology and its application in the field of Marketing. While in the first post, we discussed the concept of Blockchain in a very simplistic way along with examples, the second post elaborated the concept of Blockchain while also listing the areas in Marketing where Blockchain can be implemented.

This post takes that application scope further and looks at the application of Blockchain to areas which indirectly affect Marketing. As mentioned earlier, these are not the applications for the year 2100, hence may not be fairly imaginative. The idea is to see what can be done tomorrow!
If you have not gone through the earlier two posts yet, please take time and read them before you come back to this post.

First post: Blockchain & Its Application in Marketing - Part 1. Read time is 10mins.
Blockchain & Its Application in Marketing - Part 1

First post: Blockchain & Its Application in Marketing - Part 2. Read time is 15 mins.
Blockchain & Its Application in Marketing - Part 2

So in this post we straight away jump into the applications of Blockchain in areas that influence Marketing in some way or other.

Area	Application
Supply Chain	Inventory Management  What? – Inventory issues like duplication, dead stock, inventory ghosting and incorrect stock update have resulted in lost sales as well as unwanted inventory carrying costs, which inadvertently affect the top-line as well as bottom0line for any company. How? – Blockchain technology, with its consensus based updates as well as decentralized systems ensure that no change can be made in isolation and hence any incorrect manual update is not possible. This would mean that all the involved computers on the system will show the same inventory and there will be no miscommunication at any point regarding the storage, ordering and stock of any product. Also, the transaction trail will ensure that none of the inventory goes unaccounted for. Asset –Traceability in Value Chain What? – Despite all the innovations and development in the field of asset traceability, it is still very difficult to exactly pinpoint the initial source of the product. Issues like in-transit damage or incorrect delivery as well as a precise understanding of the actual location and state of the asset is difficult. For example, where did the diamond that you are going to buy in a ring, actually come from (previous post) and where is a specific diamond you are supposed to receive right now. How? – Each unit of the asset is assigned a traceable ID or identifier and a block (additional piece of information) is added to it as it passes through each step. Also, the Blockchain technology, with its consensus based mechanism as well as decentralized system ensure that no change can be made in isolation and hence any incorrect manual update is not possible. This would mean that all the involved computers on the system will show the same inventory and there will be no miscommunication at any point regarding the storage, ordering and stock of any product. Also, the transaction trail will ensure that none of the inventory goes unaccounted for.                          Blockchain for Asset Management - IBM
Legal	Artist collaboration and Right-Incentivisation What? – Purchase or license rights from content creators (musicians, videographers, photographers) to use their work in campaigns has not been an easy process. It is generally the artists that loses the battle due to difficulty in proving ownership of their work once it is uploaded in the public domain.  How? – Just like a piece of data or a financial transaction that can be tagged with an identified, piece of art like music can also be stored securely. Unlike a centralized system where the powerful parties can manually play and manipulate the system, with the help of Blockchain, the decentralized ledger helps in the record being present on multiple systems and can only be updated through consensus mechanism. This helps artists to be able to claim their work without interference from the industry biggies.  Employee Background Check What? – Background checks of employees is an ongoing process in any organization for all the new employees as well as for the existing ones in case of special circumstances. A lot of money is spent on the process but the information hence retrieved is seldom accurate and as desired. Also, the companies have to go through external agencies and consultancies to be able to manage this essentially internal function.  How? – Blockchain is known to preserve the history of information through identifiers and create a trail for the information by adding ‘blocks’ to make it traceable. Hence, records that are stored and managed using Blockchain technology are easily retrievable and as accurate as it gets. Hence, Blockchain technology will help in making it easy to retrieve correct records and that too in a much simpler way which will be quicker as well as cheaper. The best part will still be the control organizations can have on the process by internalizing it.
Contracts	Smart Contracts What? – Programs that manage and execute an agreement automatically based on certain pre-set conditions and constraints  How? – Blockchain technology brings in security into the traditional contracts and also reduces the cost to verify and execute contracts since its algorithm based which and it aids in automatic execution without any middleman to execute it
Data Security	Identity Protection What? – Identity protection while being a legal and common issue across countries. It does have its implication on Marketing. The fear of data leak makes people aversive towards sharing information and also restricts them to be more open and engaging. That is dangerous for any brand.  How? – If personal data of consumers could be collected, stored and managed in a more secured way that would not only help in enriching the customer profile information, but will also help customers to be more forthcoming. Blockchain technology has a way out. Its distributed ledger makes it extremely difficult for fraudsters to manipulate or steal personal data without leaving an obvious digital trail. The digital trail makes it easy for the network to identify an erroneous record or an attempt to manipulate data. It can them be easily corrected. Hence the record created on the blockchain concept is as good as immutable, securing the data effectively.

Like any new technology or invention, Blockchain has its own challenges which need to be addressed for it to be viable, relevant and scalable. Blockchain is a revolutionary technology which has the ability to transform how businesses are done. However, before jumping in to the fan-fare, top leadership at any organization needs to understand the scope and strength of this technology and be able to map its objectives clearly against the adoption of Blockchain.

In any case, we are set to transact, but not notice may be, with lot of businesses in future which will be using Blockchain as the fundamental concept for much of their operations. Behold!

Cheers,