Summary
Blockchain technology offers new possibilities for the decentralized and secure transaction and storage of data, which have great potential for the entire economy. In order to realize these potentials, it is essential that the diffusion of blockchain technology into the broad economy and thus also into small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) succeeds.
This study is dedicated to the use of blockchain in SMEs. The aim is to identify the opportunities and barriers of blockchain deployment in SMEs, as well as to investigate the impact of different forms of blockchain on the competitive position of SMEs.
An expert survey conducted as part of this study shows that increased efficiency, as well as improved supply chain management and increased data security, are seen as the greatest opportunities of blockchain deployment in SMEs. In contrast, the experts surveyed identify a lack of awareness of the technology as well as a lack of skilled workers and the still early adoption phase of blockchain solutions as the biggest obstacles in SMEs.
To analyze the impact of blockchain use on the competitive position of SMEs, a distinction is made between public blockchain, private blockchain and blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS). It can be seen that public blockchain offers the greatest potential for strengthening the competitive position of SMEs.
However, due to the limited scalability of public blockchain solutions and the resulting fluctuating transaction costs, the use of public blockchain in real economic use cases has so far frequently failed to materialize, instead currently focusing on applications in the financial sector. New forms of financing such as Security Token Offerings (STOs) are particularly relevant for SMEs.
In real economic use cases for blockchain deployment, on the other hand, private blockchains are currently predominantly used, as the problem of scaling does not arise here. However, the idea of decentralization is not very pronounced in the case of private blockchains, so that new dependencies in the form of lock-in effects can arise here for SMEs, particularly in the B2B context, or existing dependencies can become entrenched. One solution could be for SMEs to initiate consortial blockchain structures at industry level at an early stage, for example via the industry association, in order to avoid a concentration of power in private blockchains.
