Smart contracts are one of the biggest applications being explored for blockchain, as this could revolutionize how data is stored among institutions and how asset transfers are managed. The Gartner Symposium aims to discuss the “programmable economy” – a term it has coined in 2014 – to understand how new technologies such as the distributed public ledger could aid the emergence of autonomous business.
Gartner, Inc. is is the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company. It delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients, from CIOs and IT leaders, to make informed business decisions.
The Role of Smart Contracts
The group has acknowledged how industry leaders and large institutions are shifting to accommodate emerging technologies such as the blockchain. Indeed, a number of global banks have already teamed up in a collaborative project to explore the use of the distributed ledger in terms of trade settlement, record-keeping, data transfers, and smart contracts.
“These fundamental changes represent nothing less than the future of business, and will have sweeping consequences that extend far beyond business, to society as a whole. Enterprises and governments must immediately begin preparing for this transformation. They will unquestionably need to rethink their technology portfolios, organizational structures, personnel and skills and vendor relationships,” said vice president and Gartner Fellow David Furlonger.
These were just a few of the developments discussed during the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which is a gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives all over the globe. Upcoming dates of future symposiums include October 19-22 in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Oct 26-29 in Gold Coast, Australia, October 28-30 in Tokyo, Japan, November 2-5 in Goa, India, and November 8-12 in Barcelona, Spain.
Furlonger has empahsized the need for businesses to come up with strategies to adapt their current models to emerging technologies such as blockchain and smart contracts. “They will also need to consider much larger issues, including business models, target markets, product and service portfolios, reward mechanisms, intellectual property rights, legal contracts, accounting and taxation treatments, and customer relationships,” he pointed out.
View replays of the keynote speeches in the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo here.
