Blockchain is a distributed database of transactions across peer-to-peer networks. Over the past few years, interest in blockchain technology has increased tremendously, leading to the implementation of this new technology within the business world. Companies like Toyota and IBM have been able to use the blockchain as a solution to inefficiencies within their companies. Sectors affected by this new technology include trading, marketing/advertising, healthcare, and streaming services.
The advertisement industry loses around $22.4 billion a year in unethical ad sales. The main culprit of this phenomenon is a lacking vetting process. If utilised correctly, blockchain can verify, store, and selectively share data across multiple parties and biz dev jobs play a crucial role in the future growth of the blockchain sector.
"As people continue to make strives in the blockchain field it is going to create more and more business development jobs"
Toyota partnered with Lucidity, a digital advertising blockchain protocol, in a recent ad campaign. Lucidity has the ability to “identify data discrepancies that arise from suspicious activity like domain spoofing, bot traffic, and even auction games like bid caching.” The result of this partnership was a 21% increase in overall performance. Following Toyota's success companies such as Kellogg, Kimberly-Clark, Pfizer, and Nestle have now made pilot programs themselves to find outliers in their data.
For a startup company, these statistics are huge. The goal of this is maximizing profit and growth in business as a whole through networking.
In the finance industry, firms are investing in blockchain and exploring how it can improve their business. Partnering together, IBM, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, CLS Group, and the London Stock Exchange built blockchain platforms and frameworks that are secure, trustworthy, and innovative. IBM also partnered with Deutsche Bank, HSBC, KBC, Natixis, and more to develop we.trade, which is a more cost-effective way to trade internationally.
Santander InnoVentures, a fintech investment fund, thinks blockchain technology could reduce banking costs by $15-20 billion per year by 2022.
In the world of healthcare, blockchain is used to reduce data theft. 1 out of every 4 data breaches targets the healthcare sector, affecting 1 in 13 patients in the United States. Healthcare data is valuable to hackers because it is personal, permanent, and detailed. The transparency of the blockchain system, combined with the fact that nothing is truly deleted, makes it much more difficult to steal patient data undetected.
In the music industry, blockchain has been able to help music producers and artists. Opus, a music creating company, uses blockchain to leverage two different peer-to-peer networks to remove middlemen completely and provide a fully decentralized streaming platform. The network runs on allowing file sharing and storage where users of the network also act as servers. All hosting fees associated with streaming are virtually removed.
Through the use of smart contracts it allows artists to be paid directly upon purchase or stream of a song. This allows artists to retain almost all of the payments made by premium users or ad revenue generated by freemium users.
Ujo, a New York-based company, provides a decentralized database of music ownership where artists can not only upload their works and earn 100% of their sales and tips with no fees but also automatically split payments with collaborators of each project. Another project from the United States, the Open Music Initiative, uses blockchain technology to identify the holders of the music’s rights. It has already drawn the likes of Soundcloud, Sony, YouTube, Spotify and Netflix as members, showcasing just how impactful the technology can be.
As mentioned earlier, Toyota piloted a blockchain-based ad strategy and every digital ad decision was verified to find outliers. This helped the company reduce fraud while increasing traffic on their website by 21%. While spending money on advertising products might be the easiest way to outperform competition and help develop a company's name, being able to come up with solutions to look at one’s own company model and find misleading data using blockchain is an inhouse solution. Once word gets out that a company was able to find ways to reach all their users, profit possibilities go up.
Companies have implemented different marketing strategies to entice consumers or clients using innovative reward and loyalty programs. The marketing team at Paris Blockchain week Summit 2016-17 decided to implement a blockchain-based MarTech tool called BitBounce. BitBounce gave every emailer a micropayment attached to said email, and when that email was opened it automatically credited the viewer’s digital wallet on opening. “Open rates stood at 79% and CTR (clickthrough rate) at 20% after just 48 hours.” Average open rates are 15.75% and CTR of 7.63%. Email marketing is huge in getting viewers regardless of knowledge of blockchain. Incentivizing products referrals with gift cards using blockchains can drive company traffic in a positive direction.
Everybody gets emails everyday giving them offers of discounts and offers to get on their website. By implementing blockchain into companies, sent emails can allow for people to open emails no matter if they read the email or not to get currency for their effort.
According to Juniper Research advertisers are expected to lose an estimated 44 billion USD by 2022 due to frauds. The blockchain technology can help significantly reduce so-called “click frauds,” enabling the marketing executives to actually reach their targets.
By utilizing the system to manage budget spending, remove intermediaries, and prevent fraud, the risk of overcharging and underperformance is reduced.
IndaHash, an online platform that helps brands to reach digital influencers is an excellent example of how blockchain can transform marketing. By directly connecting brands and influencers, it enabled deployment of authentically branded campaigns in a swift and scalable manner.
The future for blockchain is bright as a whole since its creation in 2008. Some of the future goals that can be addressed for marketing would be to improve cost efficiency and improve customer experience. Customer’s showing their voice is key, as 85% of consumers find user-generated content more influential than any form of brand content. Blockchain companies get to reflect their results and their users' feelings about their products while paying those that participate at the same time as well. An example of how the system would work is if a user does a survey, they are automatically paid through a blockchain for their effort.
Instead of having to wait for a payment and transaction being checked by another user, the system can automatically run through the filled out portions and hand back payment. This creates less fraud in users trying to claim they were never paid.
Qualifications
For a business development job (and similar sales positions), having a bachelor's degree in marketing or sales is ideal. Being able to stay organized, pay attention to detail, and utilize strong communication skills will be key in gaining partnerships with another company. Certain companies may want previous sales and marketing experience from a previous job or entrepreneurial work, a graduate or master’s degree in business, a current understanding of blockchain as well as financial industries, and the ability to travel across the country/international relocation.
Companies Hiring
For those looking to get into blockchain through a business development or sales/marketing role, some of the well known named companies looking to hire are JP Morgan, Chase & Co., Bank of America, and Facebook. Some of the smaller named companies hiring are Stellar, Terminal, Findora, Equinix, and Fujitsu Intelligence Technology.
Tasks/roles in Biz Dev Postions
Before applying for jobs in biz dev and sales, be relatively informed of the blockchain space. You do not have to have an expert level of understanding how companies have integrated blockchain into their business. Good start is this session: Explore this BlockDriven Academy session: Business Development Analysis Careers in Blockchain [Why This Sector is Booming] - Expert Panel.
Once in the job, it will be necessary to understand what projects you are working on, whether that be computer programs, company statistics, etc. Business development has to convey what the company has been able to produce or what they are working on to other companies/clients in order to secure a partnership. Gaining partnerships or investors leads to publicity for the business. Also managing current partnerships with clients and being able to
Identify and secure partners who can commit to building on the company
Brainstorm future directions with our existing partners
Work closely with engineering and product teams to implement features needed by our partners
Draft company materials for potential clients, investors, customers, developers, etc.
Conduct competitive analysis and identify other companies in the same field
Organize investor and community events
Be responsible for driving sustainable business growth and forging strong business relationship for clients
Analyzing market opportunity and aligning product direction to meet client needs
FAQ
What should I do next?
After reading this article, search for jobs on LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, AngelList, Dice, etc. These will give in depth information on blockchain positions to further understand specific companies' wants in hiring positions. Attending any seminars or conferences about blockchain will help give insight into the market where blockchain is. Being able to attend seminars can show off new applications and projects how blockchain can integrate into companies and the future uses for it. An easy way to attend one is with BlockchainDriven. BlockchainDriven will be hosting guest speakers from the blockchain community to help anyone learn more about the space. No matter what level of knowledge, it will be informative. BlockchainDriven also has an academy with articles and newsletters regularly coming out. These articles and newsletters cover blockchain news and informative topics of the current time. Those with programming experience who want to get into blockchain, Solidity in Remix is the one of the best languages to learn.
Why should I get into the blockchain space?
2017 started mass amounts of Google searches of what blockchain is. But that is not the end of it. Blockchain is an ever-developing field with more real-world applications going on than ever before. Referenced earlier, major companies like Toyota are integrating blockchain into their workspace. By doing so, the technology is starting to remove the need for physical transactions and moving towards a digital world. As the world leans more on technology, blockchain can provide security and improve already built-in foundations of industries like finance, healthcare, education being able to back up data or protect private information.
Summary
Blockchain is being utilized in more companies and helping find solutions to drive up traffic on their products. Business development and sales is geared towards looking at profiting from partnerships and being able to market their company's solutions. Blockchain has helped in industries like finance by creating partnerships to make international trade between users easier, healthcare by holding personal information, and music by allowing creators to fully profit from their work. Marketing strategies have been able to find data with the use of blockchain to have webpage traffic increase, while email clicks have rewarded users for just opening them. The future of business development and marketing is ready to find more breaches in their security and take advantage of the opportunity to claim back their traffic on web pages. More companies may make reward systems where they give users direct payment after completing a task for the company, thus eliminating the middleman from taking unnecessary payments from user to user.
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