Blockchain And SMEs - Assignment Solution

• Introduction 

Blockchain has emerged as an ideological technology system which could offer solution for all issues arising within a financial system (Al-Saqaf & Seidler, 2017). Although initially introduced for supporting Bitcoins and crypto currency, the usage of Blockchain has expanded to all economic sectors and it has disrupted the centralized system, which forms basis of existing digitalized systems of transactions (Lorne et al., 2018). Prior to exploring the context of Blockchain in depth, it is important to define it. It has been defined as a digitalized ledger which can be encoded to facilitate recording of transactions (Anjum, Sporny & Sill, 2017). The nature of transaction is not confined to financial transaction only, but almost anything of substantial value. It has been widely claimed by researchers as well as practitioners that Blockchain is expected to bring revolutionary change within businesses, either large corporations or Small Business Enterprises (SMEs) (Liu et al., 2019). Blockchain has been termed by Cioara et al. (2018) as foundational technology, which has the potential to bring technological, social and institutional changes within existing economic system. 

The influence of Blockchain on SMEs are enormous as industries have shown substantial acceptance towards Blockchain technology, based on its features of security, transparency and privacy (Arnold et al., 2019). Most of the existing research on Blockchain based solutions for SMEs has detailed the extent to which benefits of of smart contract, crowd funding, smooth operations of supply chain management, secure data storage and fast monetary transactions, can be availed by SMEs (Heck, Schröter & Dutto, 2017). The exploration of research has unveiled that Blockchain acceptance among consumers will also bring modification in centralized web system, indicating that intermediation of search engines (such as, Google) and social networking platforms (Facebook) will be eliminated through decentralized feature of Blockchain (Coita, Abrudan & Matei, 2019). Currently, these platforms are extensively used by SMEs for reaching to target audience and for marketing of their products and services. It is noted by Clohessy, Acton & Rogers (2019) that disintermediation of these platforms through Blockchain can create challenge for SMEs to promote their offerings. Although, this research context is highly important for assuring the future success of SMEs, yet the existing literature on Blockchain based solutions for SMEs has not offered consideration to this notion. Thus, existing research proposal will address the effects of Blockchain on SMEs, based on the notion that this technology is widely accepted and embraced by consumers. 

• Research Question

The following research questions will be addressed; 

• How Blockchain technology could intervene with operations of small and medium enterprises?
• What difficulties could be faced by SMEs while approaching its target consumers based on decentralized Blockchain technology?
• How SMEs will approach customers for marketing its products and services, once need of meditator such as Google and Facebook will be eliminated through Blockchain? 
• What will be the effect of Blockchain based decentralization on overall revenue stream of SMEs? 

• Justification of Focal Research

The present research is focused on highlighting the extent to which Blockchain might hinder ability of SMEs to approach target customers, based on decentralized feature of Blockchain which will eliminate the need to rely on third party search engine and social platforms for marketing. The reliance on this aspect of research can be justified by the notion that it is least addressed aspect of research on Blockchain for SMEs. For instance, most of the studies have focused on benefits of Blockchain for SMEs in the form of smart contracts and smooth digital operations of companies (Heck, Schröter & Dutto, 2017). Meanwhile there is no valid published study which has directly studied the challenges for SMEs based on decentralization of web through Blockchain. Therefore, this gap has been highlighted in existing research which will be addressed in proposed research study.