MAY - 2021ENTERPRISE SECURITY| | 9Why are enterprise blockchain solutions not widely adopted yet?(IBM 2020). These implementation challenges relate to data connection complexities enterprises face when transferring existing data from old systems to new, DLT systems. It gets more complicated when DLT data needs to be communicated or transferred back to other systems within an enterprise. DLTs can create information silos so it remains difficult for enterprises to transfer existing data onto DLTs ­ a big impediment in the mass-adoption of DLT solutions. 4) Poor clarity on DLT use-casesOne of the top challenges when it comes to extractingvalue from blockchain is complexity: understanding what participants you need, what data you need from them, and what incentive models will drive participation (KPMG 2020). DLT is nascent, therefore it is experimental. A lot of DLT experiments are being done irrespective of the business problem they are trying to solve. This is herd behaviour, which is why DLT is often called a `hype' (Pautasso et al 2020). It's crucial to stay focused on the needs of your business and have regular feedback loops with customers. At ING, we first want to make sure there is a big problem to solve. We carefully analyse business cases by using DLT scoring frameworks and only after the DLT model is validated with the business, we apply the bank's innovation method called PACE to scale up our most successful projects. 5) Negative preconceptions of the technologyCompanies, including financial institutions, have negative preconceptions about DLT. In retail, there is a lack of trust in DLT because of negative media coverage on cryptocurrencies (Pautasso et al, 2020). Management teamsare reluctant to examine DLT because of their poor understanding of the technology's benefits and a high visibility of cryptocurrency scams and hacks (UCL 2019). Lastly, financial institutions have a negative preconception of tokens. This is largely the result of a misunderstanding of how blockchain can help to facilitate rather than hinder payments processes (UCL 2019). 6) Unexploited synergies with emerging technologyThere is an intense volume of data collected, analyzed, and made actionable today across organizations through IoT, analytics, and AI. To extract better value from DLT, synergies must be found with other emerging technologies. For example, in supply chains with many participants, DLT will become valuable once a larger mass of data is obtained (e.g. from IoT). 7) Lack of institutional support for retail offeringsSeventy-one percent of millennials would invest in cryptocurrencies if it was offered by a traditional financial institution (eToro 2019). Currently, most enterprise DLT initiatives in banking are produced for wholesale banking clients rather than retail clients. Cryptocurrencies exist on permissionless DLT, which enterprise have been hesitant to experiment with because of the risks. However, there is some enterprise demand to use permissionless DLT (EY 2020).The global DLT in retail market size was valued at $83 million in 2018, and is projected to reach $11.18 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 84.6% from 2019 to 2026 (Researchandmarkets.com). Additional DLT retail offerings could be critical to enterprise DLT adoption.8) Non-standardized developer tools In DLT, developers need to master non-industry-standard programming languages in order to build quality applications. Being able to develop apps on DLT using common programming languages such as GoLang and Java would facilitate faster application creation.Overcoming these challenges is crucial in unlocking the full-scale adoption of enterprise DLT in the future.Acknowledgments:To Annerie Vreugdenhil for asking the question and for being the source of inspiration for this article and to Xavier Meegan for resiliently finding the answers. ES
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