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.

Source: Blockchain defined: PwC

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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.

Source: Blockchain Introduction and Forecast: PwC

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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

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

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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

Source: How Blockchain Applications Will Move Beyond Finance

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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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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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25% of CEOs’ Time Is Spent on Tasks Machines Could Do | Harvard Business Review

Like President Johnson in the 1960s, we see that automation could make a major contribution to productivity and prosperity… For companies around the world, automation will offer the potential to capture substantial value — and not just from labor substitution. These technologies enable higher throughput, enhanced quality, better outcomes, greater safety, and the opportunity to scale up or adopt new business models.

Source: 25% of CEOs’ Time Is Spent on Tasks Machines Could Do

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Cognitive law outthinks data overload | IBM

It used to take up to 23 days to conduct routine legal research. Now, working with Watson, ROSS Intelligence is using cognitive technology to read legislation, court decisions and secondary sources to find answers in seconds, that help lawyers move quickly from the routine to the essential.

Few law firms of any size can survive in their present form unless they make affordable, quality representation a top priority. Now that ROSS Intelligence has tapped into Watson’s cognitive abilities, firms have the ability to do just that. Along the way, they just might just transform the entire industry.

Source: ROSS and Watson tackle the law – IBM Watson

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