How Blockchain Applications Will Move Beyond Finance

In their seminal work on the theory of the firm, Michael Jensen and William Meckling defined the firm as a “nexus of contracts” — the idea that firms are nothing more than a collection of contracts between various parties, such as employees, customers, and shareholders. Cryptocurrencies may one day enable a completely new type of organization by allowing us to securely transfer value and allocate resources through smart contracts. Whereas this new type of organization may achieve the speed and efficiency of

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Digital Currency: What the Heck Is It?

When you consider the fact that any series of transactions can be tracked with one hundred per cent accuracy (what’s called an immutable audit trail), and that built-in encryption means it’s inherently secure, blockchain suddenly becomes the ideal technology for a variety of financial functions and exchange mechanisms. And forward-thinking companies, including some of our country’s big banks, are already investing in that potential.

Source: Digital Currency: What the Heck Is It?

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Digital Currency: What the Heck Is It?

When you consider the fact that any series of transactions can be tracked with one hundred per cent accuracy (what’s called an immutable audit trail), and that built-in encryption means it’s inherently secure, blockchain suddenly becomes the ideal technology for a variety of financial functions and exchange mechanisms. And forward-thinking companies, including some of our country’s big banks, are already investing in that potential.

Source: Digital Currency: What the Heck Is It?

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IBM Watson to offer artificial-intelligence software to Mass. physician group – Boston Business Journal

IBM Watson Health will develop software using Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities that can provide a more holistic view of a patient’s health, including summarizing key aspects of a patient’s medical history in an easier-to-use format, incorporating social aspects of a person’s health into the electronic medical record and coalescing de-identified information on similar patients and their outcomes to draw broader insights on a certain treatment strategy.

Source: IBM Watson to offer artificial-intelligence software to Mass. physician group – Boston Business Journal

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IBM Watson to offer artificial-intelligence software to Mass. physician group – Boston Business Journal

IBM Watson Health will develop software using Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities that can provide a more holistic view of a patient’s health, including summarizing key aspects of a patient’s medical history in an easier-to-use format, incorporating social aspects of a person’s health into the electronic medical record and coalescing de-identified information on similar patients and their outcomes to draw broader insights on a certain treatment strategy.

Source: IBM Watson to offer artificial-intelligence software to Mass. physician group – Boston Business Journal

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Six building blocks for creating a high-performing digital enterprise | McKinsey & Company

75 percent of S&P 500 incumbents will be gone by 2027

Of course, adapting over time has always been essential to corporate success. Yet while the average corporate life span has been falling for more than half a century—Standard & Poor’s data show it was 61 years in 1958, 25 years in 1980, and just 18 years in 2011—digitization is placing unprecedented pressure on organizations to evolve. At the present rate, 75 percent of S&P 500 incumbents will be gone by 2027. That means managing your transition to a digitally driven business model isn’t just critical to beating competitors; it’s crucial to survival.

Source: Six building blocks for creating a high-performing digital enterprise | McKinsey & Company

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Six building blocks for creating a high-performing digital enterprise | McKinsey & Company

75 percent of S&P 500 incumbents will be gone by 2027

Of course, adapting over time has always been essential to corporate success. Yet while the average corporate life span has been falling for more than half a century—Standard & Poor’s data show it was 61 years in 1958, 25 years in 1980, and just 18 years in 2011—digitization is placing unprecedented pressure on organizations to evolve. At the present rate, 75 percent of S&P 500 incumbents will be gone by 2027. That means managing your transition to a digitally driven business model isn’t just critical to beating competitors; it’s crucial to survival.

Source: Six building blocks for creating a high-performing digital enterprise | McKinsey & Company

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From disrupted to disruptor: Reinventing your business by transforming the core | McKinsey & Company

As companies push to scale their digital reinvention throughout the organization, the crucial role of seasoned change managers comes into focus. These leaders not only play “air traffic controller” to the many moving parts, but also have the business credibility and skill to solve real business problems. They must maintain an accelerated pace of change and drive accountability across the business. The change leaders will look across the entire enterprise, examining organizational structure, data governance, talent recruitment, performance management, and IT systems for areas of opportunity, making decisions that balance efficiency and speed with outcome.

The “agility coach” is an example of this type of role. This person has strong communications and influencing skills, can create and roll out plans to support agile processes across the business, and can put in place KPIs and metrics to track progress.

Source: From disrupted to disruptor: Reinventing your business by transforming the core | McKinsey & Company

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From disrupted to disruptor: Reinventing your business by transforming the core | McKinsey & Company

As companies push to scale their digital reinvention throughout the organization, the crucial role of seasoned change managers comes into focus. These leaders not only play “air traffic controller” to the many moving parts, but also have the business credibility and skill to solve real business problems. They must maintain an accelerated pace of change and drive accountability across the business. The change leaders will look across the entire enterprise, examining organizational structure, data governance, talent recruitment, performance management, and IT systems for areas of opportunity, making decisions that balance efficiency and speed with outcome.

The “agility coach” is an example of this type of role. This person has strong communications and influencing skills, can create and roll out plans to support agile processes across the business, and can put in place KPIs and metrics to track progress.

Source: From disrupted to disruptor: Reinventing your business by transforming the core | McKinsey & Company

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An executive’s guide to software development | McKinsey & Company

Architecture based on application programming interfaces (APIs). Historically, companies have suffered from building and maintaining “spaghetti code,” which is as messy and difficult to manage as overcooked angel-hair pasta. An effective API-based architecture solves this problem and instead provides an extensible framework of building blocks that can be used to compose powerful applications. Like Legos, such blocks are easy to separate, update, and then replace.

Source: An executive’s guide to software development | McKinsey & Company

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