Blockchain digital process: PwC

But over the long term, the greatest promise is with intricate forms of agent-managed peer-to-peer automation—a highly efficient Internet of Things empowered by an Internet and web of agents, smart transactions, and contracts. The rest of the 2010s likely will be a period of tinkering, comparable in some ways to the late 1990s. Considering there are hundreds of both blockchain and artificial intelligence startups, and sizeable venture capital (VC) investments across both, the possibility also looms of a boom-and-bust period that could mirror the dot-com era in its breadth and depth. By the time the last half of the 2020s materializes, companies might have made their way through what Gartner calls a Trough of Disillusionment to the adoption of a transactional environment very different from today’s.

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Blockchain public or private: PwC

Blockchain technology is embeddable and can be subsumed by larger systems, and it’s best to think of blockchains in terms of what will eventually surround them. They will not stand alone, but will function within the core of multiple, increasingly distributed ecosystems.

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Blockchain importance: PwC

Instead of involving lots of humans in the transaction pipeline and paper processes that take days, weeks, or months to complete, huge volumes of transactions could be validated automatically. Other more complicated transactions that still require humans could at least be simplified with the help of mathematical validation.

From a legal standpoint, the system becomes a “person,” a virtual third-party enforcer that never sleeps. From a computing perspective, that “person” is actually a software agent. The use of agents will be essential to scaling recordkeeping and providing visibility to the historical record.

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Blockchain defined | PwC

In the simplest case, a smart contract would make it possible to lock out a driver whose authorization to drive a rental car had expired. In more complex scenarios, rental car companies could automate the operation of entire facilities.

From a legal standpoint, the system becomes a “person,” a virtual third-party enforcer that never sleeps. From a computing perspective, that “person” is actually a software agent. The use of agents will be essential to scaling recordkeeping and providing visibility to the historical record.

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Blockchain Introduction and Forecast: PwC

Smart transactions enable smart contracts

Blockchain ledger technology opens the door not only to decentralized transactions, but also to smart (that is, automated and computable) transactions and smart (computable and self-executing) contracts that can take advantage of smart transactions. A smart contract is a digitally signed, computable agreement between two or more parties. A virtual third party—a software agent—can execute and enforce at least some of the terms of such agreements.

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The Blockchain Will Do to Banks and Law Firms What the Internet Did to Media

The “killer app” for the early internet was email; it’s what drove adoption and strengthened the network. Bitcoin is the killer app for the blockchain. Bitcoin drives adoption of its underlying blockchain, and its strong technical community and robust code review process make it the most secure and reliable of the various blockchains. Like email, it’s likely that some form of Bitcoin will persist. But the blockchain will also support a variety of other applications, including smart contracts, asset registri

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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.

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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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