DIY Investor Magazine
/
March 2017
31
Guy Halford-Thompson
Co-founder and CEO BTL Group
BLOCKCHAIN PART 2 - TECHNOLOGY IS
ABOUT INNOVATION, NOT DISRUPTION
Companies often talk about the disruptive potential
of their technology, but often misunderstand what it
means.
Disruption is described by the English dictionary as
‘disturbance or problems that interrupt an event, activity,
or process’; when working with established industry
incumbents to transform technology, disruption is the
exact opposite of what we so called ‘disruptors’ should
be aiming for.
As well known US technology revolutionary Clay
Christensen puts in his book, The Innovator’s Dilemma,
a disruptive product is one which addresses a new
market that previously couldn’t be served. Innovation, on
the other hand, is transforming an existing market with
new technology.
When working with established market players, the
challenge is to innovate without disruption. It’s important
to understand the many challenges faced by large
corporations when they look to innovate, and the
dangers that disruption can pose. Identifying problems
first, before providing the solution is key and all too often
technology providers build what they think is a solution
before even confirming if there’s a problem it can solve.
The priority for large corporations is risk aversion, which
does not typically mix well with innovation. In order to
properly innovate, it is our role as technology solution
providers to ensure that companies are able to meet
their innovation goals, while being exposed to minimal
risk.
This is particularly applicable when it comes to
blockchain and distributed ledgers. The technology
has huge transformative potential, if projects are not
implemented correctly, they can lead to disruption, not
innovation.
In order to innovate without disrupting, it’s important to
follow a key set of guidelines:
1. Have a broad project scope, but a very defined
use case. Big change creates disruption, and while
important to be able to demonstrate the long term
opportunity, the concept should be validated on
a low risk area of the project. This can sometimes
be counter-intuitive, especially if the chosen area is
not where the most long term value will be realized,
but it’s important to solve the easy problems first,
validate the concept, and then apply the same
solution to the more complex problems.
2. Education is paramount. Often individual project
sponsors within companies struggle to sell projects
internally because internal education of the
technology is lacking.
3. Break the project into incremental phases. Each
phase should have a key set of validation criteria,
and build on the previous phase. Initial phases
should focus around technology goals and
milestones, later stages on business validation.
Breaking the project into phases allows companies
to drastically reduce the risk of taking on new
projects.
Technology solution providers need to focus on being
innovators, not disruptors.
Operating from Vancouver, Canada and Canary
Wharf in London, BTL offers blockchain solutions to
businesses across multiple industries, in particular
the finance, energy and gaming sectors. It has
showcased the capabilities of its Interbit platform, an
interbank payment network and settlement and asset
trading solution. Interbit is an open, multi-chain, asset
settlement platform with a suite of APIs and smart
contracts that allow businesses global access to fast,
secure, and auditable financial and asset trading
services. BTL (TSXV:BTL), the world’s first and only
pure-play listed blockchain technology company is a
front-runner in the blockchain ecosystem, providing
advice and knowledge to industry leaders.
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