F
FEATURES | Mental Health
Blockchain is
dead, long live
blockchain
Thierry Rayna, PhD, a
professor of innovation
management at École
Polytechnique, explains
why blockchain is still
likely to bring future
disruption for businesses.
WHAT IS
BLOCKCHAIN?
Blockchain is an online
distributed le dge r.
E ve r yo n e h o l d s a
copy, which is divided
into cryptographically
linked blocks of
entries. Blockchain is
decentralised, secure,
doesn’t require trust
between participants
or an intermediary
and – crucially – must
be infinitely costly to
forge. This is a blessing
and a curse though; the
mechanism at the core
of the Bitcoin blockchain,
WHY CAN’T I AVOID
HEARING ABOUT IT?
Bitcoin (a cryptocurrency
based on blockchain)
attracted attention
in 2017 after its value
increased by more than
18,000%. Unsettled by
digital disruptions and
afraid of ‘uberisation’,
businesses spent vast
amounts researching
commercial uses beyond
crypto currencies. We
heard about ‘smart’
contracts, digital identity,
supply-chain tracking,
drug authenticity
checks, micro-grids, not
to mention voting and
e-government. But the
cryptocurrency market
crashed, partly after
various raids (including
by the FBI) and hacking
of crypto exchanges
revealed vulnerabilities.
Banking on a
bad reputation
Most brand consultants wouldn’t advise
associating your business with morally
dubious terminology. But in the case
of finance, it seems that banks with a
nicer reputation may be finishing last. A
study by Thomas Roulet of Cambridge
University’s Judge Business School (Sins
for some, virtues for others) reviewed US
press coverage of the financial industry
between 2006 and 2011. It found that the
more frequently a specific list of negative
terms such as “obscene”, “vicious”, “covert”,
“shameless”, “casino”, “frenzy”, “excess” and
“selfish” were used in public coverage of a
bank, the greater the business they gained
from corporate clients. It seems that when it
comes to money management, a reputation
for ruthless (but competent) amorality is
more of a help than a hindrance.
12 //
Future Talent
IS THAT THE END FOR
BLOCKCHAIN?
No. The demise of Bitcoin
doesn’t mean much for
blockchain itself. A bigger
issue is that many of the
companies exploring
how to use blockchain
were underwhelmed.
In cases where using it
was feasible, the costs
of doing so were almost
equally high. In most
cases, it’s just as efficient
and secure to use a
centralised platform (like
a bank). This is why, in
cases where blockchain
could be used, such as
smart contracts, digital
identity and supply-chain
tracking, using it doesn’t
make practical sense.
for example, is so ‘costly’
that the total electricity
expenditure of Bitcoin
for 2018 was the same
as that of Denmark!
DOES BLOCKCHAIN
HAVE DISRUPTIVE
POTENTIAL FOR
BUSINESSES?
For some businesses, the
hype around blockchain
is a symptom of an
underlying condition –
that more digitisation
Unhidden Figures
Recent research by Accenture shows that 62% of companies
are using new technologies to collect data on staff and their
work. The good news? 89% of workers are open to it, if it
leads to improvements in their productivity, wellbeing or
other benefits, such as customised L&D opportunities. In
fact, 70% of employees want to own their work-related data
and take it with them when they leave jobs. The upside? If
employers collect data along these lines, they could see a 6.3%
increase in revenue growth, equating to a potential $3.1trn in
future revenues globally. The bad news? Only 29% of
companies are confident they’re collecting data ethically
and half of workers fear that new sources of data gathering
risk damaging trust; 61% of employees cited recent data
scandals that gave them reason to take pause. The downside?
If businesses adopt irresponsible strategies for collecting and
using workforce data and lose the trust of their employees,
they risk losing 6.1% of revenue growth instead.
*The Accenture Strategy report, Decoding Organizational DNA,
is based on qualitative and quantitative research, including global
surveys of 1,400 C-level executives and 10,000 workers across
13 industries.