The tech industry accounts for about $ 5.2 trillion, and technological growth and advancements always spell freshness and changes in how things run especially business operations. The internet came and profoundly improved marketing and sales, communication and collaboration, supply chain operations, and business processes and workflow. Machine learning and artificial intelligence have also improved business-customer interactions through predictability.
Lately, blockchain has introduced decentralization in building applications, finance, document management, and now the internet. In fact, custom blockchain development has significant benefits to businesses as you can use it to solve a specific business need, is scalable, and is flexible.
The internet itself has remained dynamic growing with the current demands and technological advancements. Each phase brings a better twist to the last. This article looks at the latest phase in internet growth, web 3.0, and why it’s important for businesses.
What is Web3
To understand this phase, you need to go back to the history of the internet. In the beginning, developers created open protocols that served as the foundation upon which the internet’s ecosystem was built. The first phase, Web 1.0, provided a base for developing web assets and platforms. In the second phase, web 2.0, came with better capabilities building up on the benefits of the first phase.
Now the newest phase is web 3.0 which brings the concept of a decentralized internet into play. This again brings even more benefits to internet users such as higher privacy and protection of sensitive data. But how will it impact the business landscape? Here’s what business owners should anticipate when getting into Web3. While Web3 is still in its infancy, it promises numerous benefits rooted in its fundamentals and the utilization of blockchain. If all goes as anticipated, here are the benefits you should expect with your business processes.
No intermediaries or third-party involvement
One of the biggest challenges facing businesses, particularly small businesses is the lack of resources to collect their own data. This leads to the need for businesses to collaborate with third-party companies to get data. While this is a good and seemingly cost-effective way to get data, it comes with some downsides. Sometimes the data you get is inaccurate which leads to poor performance in your data-driven decisions and operations.
This is one of the top things that affect a business’s bottom line causing losses in revenue. However, the use of blockchain eliminates intermediaries. Web3 will allow your business to connect directly with customers and collect your own data through a peer-to-peer (P2P) connection. With this, you can get more accurate data to help improve decisions, predict consumer behavior, and improve your return on interest.
Better customer experience
Great customer experience still stands and is a main consideration and factor for any business. However, businesses still struggle with creating and achieving this aspect be it online or offline. Customers expect you to know them individually and make your offering and communication unique to them.
This includes the discounts you offer, bonuses, or loyalty points and rewards. One of the main challenges that businesses face in achieving this is the ability to personalize these experiences, something that customers value a lot. But with the ease in data availability directly from customers and other legitimate sources, creating these experiences will become much easier.
Good customer experience translates to other areas of the business such as improved loyalty, conversations, and sales. Your marketing department can get better at understanding customer needs, forecasting, and personalizing communication and offers. Because customers expect businesses to understand individual needs, this can improve your customer acquisition, retention, and sales.
Improved customer trust
Another issue that affects businesses is the lack of trust from customers because of privacy because third-party data miners have very low regard for privacy. The aim of data brokers is beneficial monetary gain. With customers being aware and enlightened about the possible use of their data by third parties, they can become quite cautious and withhold sharing data with you.
With Web3, the issue of customer trust concerns is eliminated. By removing intermediaries from the mix, there is improved transparency and therefore, operations. Research shows that customers trust and remain loyal to the brand they feel is transparent and even willing to spend more. You can maintain customer trust and continue enjoying the sales benefits that come with it.
In addition, you can improve customer trust by incorporating a better reward program such as social tokens. You can reap the benefits of social tokens for business while improving customer trust and engagement.
Enhanced supply chain
According to research, about 69% of businesses struggle with poor supply chain visibility. But this is something that blockchain technology can solve. Because Web3 is built on blockchain, data is distributed across the network eliminating silos and improving transparency and visibility in the supply chain. When there’s transparency and proper visibility, your business will experience better efficiency. You can easily track your products from the manufacturers, warehouses, in transit, in the store, and eventually to the client. This level of improved efficiency will save you costs and customer complaints and facilitate business growth.
Higher cyber security
With most businesses going digital, cyber security becomes a major concern. The number of attacks on businesses daily is simply overwhelming. There are many malicious characters on the internet preying on unsuspecting businesses to steal data and sell it in black markets. Most of these attacks crumble businesses as sometimes the monetary and reputational loss is too huge. Besides, your business is always at risk of fines for poor customer data protection methods if you get hacked and lose sensitive customer data to cyber criminals. Web3 promises to eliminate this issue from the internet because it’s decentralized. This means there’s no single point of failure which makes it quite hard for criminals to hack and steal information.
Final thoughts
The good thing about technology is that it’s not static. It keeps on growing and this new phase of the internet promises to improve your business in so many ways. Improved business operations and efficiency will help your business thrive in a competitive world.
As other businesses are struggling with issues related to data, getting into Web3 will keep you ahead in acquiring and utilizing customer data more effectively. Hopefully, these benefits will help you make a decision about Web3 and keep your business positioned to receive the next big thing in technology, particularly blockchain. Keep your business futuristic.