30 Enterprise Blockchain Barriers

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.

  1. Legal documentation and fees in forming a consortium network
  2. Legal classification of digital assets
  3. Legal obstacles from regulatory network
  4. Resource turnover – Key contacts leaving emerging tech group as point of contact
  5. Clear education to c-suite decision makers
  6. Unconvincing yearly/short-term return on investments of projects
  7. Long client journeys for experimental gains
  8. Clashes with existing vendor relationships
  9. Inability to sunset old applications because full feature list not covered in new application
  10. Lack of focus on the real end user (an admin or legal person or transfer agent representative)?
  11. Enterprise security policies for data monitoring and firewalls
  12. Enterprise platform review process – 150 questions per institution with projects across at least 5 institutions
  13. Risk of external image experimenting with the technology leading to unhappy shareholders/stakeholders
  14. Branding misalignment to cryptocurrency maximialism
  15. Internal bureaucracy – projects that might remove existing operational costs associated with reconciliation processes
  16. Re-engineering business processes and large scale live systems
  17. Risk of data sharing privacy rules with GDPR
  18. Uncertainty of regulations for associated token networks
  19. Lack of banking licenses (e.g. Money transfer, transfer agency, ATS, broker dealer, etc) for extending features
  20. Differences in regulations across borders and industries
  21. KYC and identity matching across platforms
  22. Issues with consortium creating monopolies or breaking anti trust rules
  23. Lack of resources or expensive blockchain resources
  24. Unwillingness for tech companies to build significant features before getting commercial interest (to avoid single product spirals)
  25. Unwillingness for enterprise companies to pay for the journey of building a product
  26. Deployment of a network as well as software across multiple versioning requirements (immature packaging and configuration management and release governance tools for upgradability)
  27. Standard software vendor reviewssoc2 and security audits of parent company
  28. Support contracts agreed upon across multiple clients at once
  29. Cannibalizing own business model and trouble finding new monetization opportunities
  30. End of the hype cycle coincides with the drying up of VC investments and lower valuations

~See Lemons Still Build Towards Production