There has been a lot of buzz around Blockchain and anyone in the IT industry or IT education sphere would have heard about it. So what really is Blockchain and why is it in demand?
Blockchain is a distributed, trusted ledger that shares the business processes between various organizations. Every record is made by a participant, whether it’s a transaction, an authorization, an event or any other piece of information that is encrypted and added to a growing chain. Once records are added, it cannot be changed or deleted which provides an immutable record of all the processes of a business.
It was initially conceived from the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and is therefore mistaken to be reserved only for financial services. But this technology can actually be applied to any industry and can have a significant impact on the business and it already is making a difference across industries. For instance, Nestle and Walmart deploy the technology in order to create better transparency around the chains of food supply so as to reduce the risk of diseases that are foodborne. Everledger also makes use of Blockchain in order to track diamond provenance through supply chain and tackles unethical dealers and miners. The applications can be exciting and manifold.
Getting Organized
For businesses who intend to adopt Blockchain, it is no longer enough to simply just be an enthusiast in your ranks who drives adoption and awareness of the technology. While they remain critically important to increasing activity by helping education, it gets increasingly tough to do what is necessary along with their regular job, not to mention that they could be a part of a particular line of business that leaves out other areas of organization. Blockchain is a strategic and holistic method of getting the best from technology. Getting organized is the first step – figuring how the vision of your business and the technology of Blockchain fit in together? How can implementing Blockchain impact the basic infrastructure? Etc. L&D professionals also need to check what role the business would like to play within the emerging Blockchain ecosystem. For instance, companies form a list of consortia in order to dive adoption, awareness and innovation. Blockchain demands an organized approach and must not run in silos. A part of this organized approach is organizing professional training for the workforce instead of depending on them to ‘figure it out’.
Opportunities
Once you have set your goals, the next natural step is considering how to achieve them. Do you partner with a technology evangelist or just a regular training institute? Or should you engage a Business Model that uses “Blockchain-as-a-service” and consumes technology as a solution. The right route could differ as per the use case. So the model you pick depends on your goals and strategies.
Making assessments
The step that is taken next is to check if the business needs meet the objectives of Blockchain. Here is when the need to upskill your existing staff needs to be considered seriously. This is a critical concern as there is a widening skill gap that surrounds Blockchain. Correcting the internal imbalance can be possible with training of in-house teams.
Becoming Adaptable
Integration of Blockchain solutions with current business processes needs flexibility. Doing an entire trial process in a sandbox environment is a great way to start in order to ensure a smooth integration and transition. It is required for Blockchain projects to be fluidic in nature in order to create governance and management processes apart from assessing present business processes. And in order to even achieve this, one would need a strong technology partner for training so that your employees know how this can be done effectively.
IIHT has been a preferred training partner and technology evangelist for over 2 decades. For more, go to els.iiht.com