Random Observation/Comment #642: Going to production in enterprise environments is not easy.
Why this list?
I’m a huge blockchain proponent and love the technology mixed with economics. I love it so much I wrote a list of 30 Blockchain buzzwords back in 2016 and it’s still surprisingly relevant.
There are benefits and new business models opened by connecting multiple traditionally siloed industries and standards into an agreed upon platform. In the enterprise space, solving the data resilience and reconciliation route reduces operational costs and streamlines complex workflows between servers. I personally feel Ethereum has an edge by being compatible execution environments for public and private node implementations (Shameless plug).
I’ve pushed towards public implementations of the networks due to some of the major barriers faced on this list. I’ve found that the tech battle has almost become the easier thing to solve rather than the business hurdles.
- Legal documentation and fees in forming a consortium network
- Legal classification of digital assets
- Legal obstacles from regulatory network
- Resource turnover – Key contacts leaving emerging tech group as point of contact
- Clear education to c-suite decision makers
- Unconvincing yearly/short-term return on investments of projects
- Long client journeys for experimental gains
- Clashes with existing vendor relationships
- Inability to sunset old applications because full feature list not covered in new application
- Lack of focus on the real end user (an admin or legal person or transfer agent representative)?
- Enterprise security policies for data monitoring and firewalls
- Enterprise platform review process – 150 questions per institution with projects across at least 5 institutions
- Risk of external image experimenting with the technology leading to unhappy shareholders/stakeholders
- Branding misalignment to cryptocurrency maximialism
- Internal bureaucracy – projects that might remove existing operational costs associated with reconciliation processes
- Re-engineering business processes and large scale live systems
- Risk of data sharing privacy rules with GDPR
- Uncertainty of regulations for associated token networks
- Lack of banking licenses (e.g. Money transfer, transfer agency, ATS, broker dealer, etc) for extending features
- Differences in regulations across borders and industries
- KYC and identity matching across platforms
- Issues with consortium creating monopolies or breaking anti trust rules
- Lack of resources or expensive blockchain resources
- Unwillingness for tech companies to build significant features before getting commercial interest (to avoid single product spirals)
- Unwillingness for enterprise companies to pay for the journey of building a product
- Deployment of a network as well as software across multiple versioning requirements (immature packaging and configuration management and release governance tools for upgradability)
- Standard software vendor reviews – soc2 and security audits of parent company
- Support contracts agreed upon across multiple clients at once
- Cannibalizing own business model and trouble finding new monetization opportunities
- End of the hype cycle coincides with the drying up of VC investments and lower valuations
~See Lemons Still Build Towards Production
