According to Gartner, one of the world’s most respected consulting firms when it comes to divining new market trends, blockchain technologies will transform most, if not all, industries about the globe over the next decade. The firm just completed its latest annual survey on the topic and has determined that corporate CIOs are definitely on board the blockchain train into the future. Yes, some industries will be more impacted than others, but the general use case will approach the manner in which the Internet changed us all.
David Furlonger, research vice-president at Gartner, commented to reporters at CoinTelegraph that:
Even though they are still uncertain of the impact blockchain will have on their businesses, 60% of CIOs in the Gartner 2019 CIO Agenda Survey said that they expected some level of adoption of blockchain technologies in the next three years. However, the existing digital infrastructure of organizations and the lack of clear blockchain governance are limiting CIOs from getting full value with blockchain.
These updated results indicate that awareness has increased a great deal in only a single year. The 2018 survey revealed only a 66% awareness of the potential benefits of blockchain technologies, and only 22% of CIOs, compared to 60% in 2019, showed any interest going forward.
Furlonger also added where they believe the most interest will originate:
We see blockchain in several key areas in banking and investment services, primarily focused on permissioned ledgers. […] We also expect continued developments in the creation and acceptance of digital tokens. However considerable work needs to be completed in non-technology-related fields.
Gartner also predicted that the gaming industry will also be an interesting “innovation sandbox” that will discover several new applications of crypto technologies, while also experimenting with all manner of uses of tokenization and decentralization. Per their report, they also see movement in several other commercial sectors, including “retail for tracking and tracing services, counterfeit protection, inventory management, and auditing”.
Each market will have to “feel” its way through the maze, so to speak, because the technology is nowhere near maturity. The expectation is that a continuing flow of enhancements and upgrades will provide a host of new avenues to explore. How quickly each business sector adapts to change in its respective ecosystem will determine the pace of transformation and who obtains a competitive advantage from innovation. Any advantage obtained may also depend on how blockchain is paired with other innovative technologies, such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT).
The study also speaks to potential “hurdles”, as well. Blockchain is a radical departure from existing IT approaches that favor centralization. There will be the typical resistance to change that legacy systems create within corporate hierarchies. As change occurs, it will not happen evenly across all industries, and, as noted above, IT groups will have to contend with blockchain technologies being a “moving target” that will morph continually into its next embodiment.
Gartner concludes:
Without tokenization and decentralization, most industries will not see real business value.
Whether through innovative applications or related devices, opportunities will abound. Other studies have also postulated that compounded growth rates in this arena over the next five years could be in excess of 40%.