28% of enterprises are now evaluating or using blockchain although fewer than 3% have any production applications, according to 451 Research’s Blockchain Codex 2017 Report – part of 451 Research’s Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud Transformation study.
According to the new 2017 451 Research report, 20% of organizations surveyed are using blockchain in a discovery or evaluation phase, 4% running trials or pilots, 2% in test and development environments, 2% undertaking initial implementations of production applications and less than 1% have broad implementation of production applications.
The market is rife with blockchain-washing and there is little understanding about how enterprises can deploy blockchain profitably while navigating a market with thousands of vendors and hundreds of consortia vying for mindshare, according to 451 Research. The Blockchain Codex would systematically decode this market with the goal of replacing confusion and complexity with an examination of the technology components and guidance on first steps.
Analysts believe blockchain has the potential to be the active ingredient for establishing universal trust amongst parties through clever code and peer consensus. In the enterprise sector, where smart contracts will dictate terms and cloud-tasking using multiple providers is the norm, there will be a need for transparency and an immutable system of record. At the edge, IoT devices could take advantage of blockchain for authentication and to store and share interactions and data.
Trust and Efficiency
Ultimately, “Blockchain will do for transactions what the Internet has done for information,” said Csilla Zsigri, the report’s author and senior analyst, cloud transformation and blockchain at 451 Research. “It promises to disrupt business models and entire industries. It allows for increased trust and efficiency, and is pushing us to challenge how we define and exchange value and reward participation. With a scarcity of skills in blockchain technology and potential applications, there is a tremendous opportunity for third party expertise that can help define and support proof of concepts and initial deployments.”
Combining a proprietary panel of more than 60,000 senior IT buyers with robust data-collection methodologies, 451 Research’s Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud Transformation tracks and analyses the disruption occurring in the market today and exposes the major opportunities for enterprises, IT vendors, suppliers, and investors. The study represents more than 600 completes a web-based survey, completed by IT facilities decision-makers worldwide, primarily based in North America and Europe, and supplemented by 19 in-depth, phone-based interviews.
