Doha: Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have opportunity to operate their businesses by adopting blockchain technology.
This technology is shifting the enterprise paradigm to decentralisation, and SMEs can upgrade their business operations by using it, said an expert during a online event.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) organised a webinar entitled ‘Blockchain technology, a new enterprise paradigm’ which discussed how blockchain is reshaping the future and now is the right time to embrace this revolutionary change.
Lina Alsahan, computer engineer, Blockchain Research Institute Middle East said, “Blockchain is a system for storing and processing transactions on a geographically spread network. It is a distributed ledger that is immutable, decentralised and cannot be controlled by a central authority.”
“The way that one block is chained to the other one will ensure that none of the parties that are connected to the peer-to-peer network will be able to manipulate and alter the content of the previous blocks. Blockchain technology will benefit the SMEs and positively impact business operations,” she said.
Blockchain has three elements - blocks (list of records), nodes (computers that run blockchain software and help transmit information across the network), and smart contracts (a distributed program executed by the network of nodes).
“Smart contracts make the blockchain technology revolutionary and successful even here in Qatar. We do not need crypto currency to conduct the business operations over the blockchain. Crypto currency and financial services is one use case of blockchain, but this technology has many other uses as well. There are two types of blockchains – public blockchain like Bitcoin which limits the success of this technology. However, the one which we target, and most companies and enterprises are trying is the private or permissioned blockchain which does not require cryptocurrency because the transactions that is happening between the multiple parties is not money transfer but asset and information transfer, hence also known as ‘Internet of learning’,” she added.
Speaking about the benefits of blockchain she noted that it has many benefits for SMEs such as cost reduction up to 30 percent to 60 percent in administration and papers, trusted contracts terms enforcement, records resistance to fraud and manipulation, traceability of assets states from end-to-end, automation multi-parties operations, and transparency and accountability between businesses.
She said, “In future by incorporating Internet of Things (IoT) with the blockchain technology we will end up with very high-quality logistics and supply chain services because of the level of automation. All the parties within one ecosystem can be engaged in the process as there will be automated approvals in all the operations automatically when they are all engaged in one blockchain system which will elevate the quality and reduce the cost of services of an enterprise. Also, we will have a high-level of transparency because of the distribution of the network and have accountability.”
Citing examples of big giant companies Amazon, Pfizer, FedEx, she said these companies are studying and have solutions for blockchain which shows how this technology will change and shift the enterprise paradigm from centralisation to decentralisation to enable to the level of information sharing and to utilise services and business operations in one ecosystem. SMEs have opportunity to regulate their businesses to adopt blockchain technology. With research and good analysis, organisations can identify how to have a constructive utilisation of blockchain.
