What Students Seeking an MBA Degree Should Know About Blockchain

Blockchain is a technology that's experienced a surge in popularity in recent years. Though normally associated with cryptocurrencies such as the high-profile Bitcoin, the applications of blockchain are varied and adaptable. Blockchain has the potential to disrupt many aspects of the business world, and is increasingly incorporated into the practices of large corporations. FedEx, Walmart, Microsoft, IBM, Huawei, and Bank of America are all examples of corporations that are starting to utilize blockchain technologies.

As a student working towards an MBA degree, it's important to remain knowledgeable regarding important trends in the business world. There are several reasons why blockchain is such a lucrative technology, and why you should be attuned to the ways in which it can bring benefits to your business practice. Read on for an explanation of blockchain's relevance to the business world.

Blockchain Can Contribute to Your Business' Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is one of the main reasons why so many businesses are increasingly adopting blockchain technology, especially in the financial sectors. The Australian Securities Exchange has announced that it's building a large-scale blockchain project that will be used to finalize transactions, for example. This is because blockchain's decentralized structure makes the information it stores much more secure than in other methods.

Blockchain's benefit is that it is a decentralized digital record. Information about transactions, such as prices, people involved, and timestamps, is encrypted securely into blocks that are linked with other blocks to form a chain. The important thing for business school students to be mindful of is that there is no central authority controlling the blockchain. Everyone involved in the blockchain has access to the same information, providing transparency as well as security. There is no central version of the information that a hacker can attack.

It Can Increase the Efficiency of Your Business Operations

The decentralization of blockchain technology isn't only useful for resisting attacks by hackers. The transparency provided by the decentralized chain is also useful when communicating with other partners and stakeholders. Blockchain provides every contributor in the information system with the same copy of the chain, and this chain is immutable, meaning that all participants will be looking at the same thing.

This can be useful for businesses that are a part of a supply chain. After completing your MBA courses, you may become involved in a business that purchases items or information from suppliers and goes on to sell them to consumers or to other businesses. By using blockchain, you can render the supply chain completely secure, transparent, and immutable. This ensures that every involved party intimately knows what is happening at every step of the way. If something goes wrong at any stage of the supply chain, every participant will immediately know.

It's Helpful for Internal and External Auditing Purposes After Business School

An audit is a process that many business professionals will have to go through at various points in their career. Blockchain technology has the potential to make the process much more streamlined, efficient, and stress-free.

Typically, performing audits - whether internal or external - necessitates sorting through massive amounts of data. With blockchain, all the transactional data needed is already preserved in a secure, transparent, and immutable format. An audit becomes a much more simplistic process, necessitating only a quick review of the chain of transactions.

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