How does it help businesses?

A blockchain is an efficient tool for recording business transactions, contractual agreements and confidential reports.

With the development of blockchain technology, businesses of all sizes are exploring the technology’s possibilities. Blockchain startups mostly use public or permissionless blockchains, while businesses turn to private or permissioned ones. The main difference between public and private blockchains is that in a public one the network’s participants are not known, while in a private blockchain they are.

More and more businesses from various industries want to join the digital revolution and use blockchain as it develops. Thus, there is a demand for enterprise-grade blockchain solutions as banks, healthcare providers and even governments are experimenting with the technology.

This article will give you an understandable overview of the enterprise blockchain, its essential functions and how the technology can help your business solve complex problems.

What is Enterprise Blockchain?

An enterprise blockchain is a type of approved blockchain used to extend business processes such as tracking supplies, sharing data within the company and with business partners, and making international agreements.

An enterprise blockchain technology is a ledger consisting of encrypted units, or blocks, that are stored in chronological order and used as a single source of data across a distributed network. This ledger is often available to a small group of users, and the company has full control over the users. Since it is possible to set restrictions on who can see the company’s data, companies prefer to use this type of blockchain network over a public one.

They also use cryptography to prevent malicious parties from changing past transactions and their history. The world’s largest companies, including IBM, JPMorgan and Walmart, are already adopting enterprise-class blockchain solutions.

Enterprise Blockchain Features

Businesses are striving to solve routine problems, streamline workflows and start working more efficiently. They are willing to handle it using key blockchain features. Let’s explore what these features are.

• Accountability. Each node in the network that has a copy of the transaction history is identified and is responsible for its activities.
• Distribution. The Enterprise blockchain Ledger can be copied and stored on multiple nodes enabling the distribution of data across the network.
• Immutability. Any verified record on a blockchain network cannot be changed or tampered with by network participants.
• Permissions. Enterprise blockchain is only available to authorized users. The network’s owners decide who will grant access to the network. Thus, there is more flexibility and efficiency in validating transactions.
• Scalability. Enterprise blockchains can hold more transactions at the base layer since they are often less decentralized than public ones.
• Safety. The data is protected using cryptographic encryption and other security measures to prevent the system from being attacked.
• Token-drivenness. Tokens are used to make interactions on the network and as a medium of exchange in decentralized environments.

Blockchain applications in business

Payments across national borders

Blockchain facilitates fast, safe and secure international payments, avoiding the challenges faced by traditional payment systems. For example, when both parties use blockchain, they share payment data through the encrypted ledger in real time. So the payment is confirmed without third parties like banks and processed almost instantly with lower transaction costs.

Document management

Document management is one of the biggest problems for companies, especially large ones. Businesses try to manage documents efficiently, but it leads to information duplication, massive disorganization, confusion and more errors. Thus, employees waste time searching for the necessary files and distributing them instead of focusing on value-added tasks.

Blockchain allows companies to have full control over all the documents passing through the enterprise and instantly verify the essential data about any file on the network, including the file’s creator, its location and when it was last edited. All this information is available to all network participants and helps to avoid file duplication.

Regulatory compliance and auditing

Businesses around the world find it difficult to keep up with ever-changing rules and regulations. Blockchain brings significant benefits to all parties involved in the regulatory process.

For example, blockchain technology can help comply with AML and KYC regulations for banks. Financial institutions have to onboard their customers, which is a time-consuming process. They must collect data and adhere to a series of verification rules. Blockchain makes it possible to eliminate these steps and reduce maintenance costs as all information will be available to network participants in real time and all changes will be shared across all the connected nodes.

Smart contracts

Smart contracts can automate a number of processes such as digital identity verification, content access, money exchange, etc. since they have predefined conditions that trigger certain actions when met.

For example, smart contracts can streamline the loan and mortgage management process. The contract can be built to follow the mortgage agreement and manage a mortgage by tracking the payment frequency. Also, a breach of contract can start the process of a mortgage penalty or other response under the agreement.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Organizations tend to optimize their infrastructure by building IoT ecosystems. But the higher the number of connected devices, the higher the security risk. Integrating blockchain with IoT allows businesses to address security concerns as the IoT smart device can operate autonomously without a centralized authority. The network will create immutable and chronological records, so it will make it possible to check how assets interact with each other.

Enterprise-grade blockchain solutions can also reduce the costs associated with managing and storing data since it will be held on a distributed ledger. In addition to this, blockchain’s distributed nature reduces the risk of IoT downtime.