Imagine a world where every transaction that is done is transparent but secure at the same time completed in a public ledger, where there is no Audit, IRS, no lawyers with $700 per hour M&A fees, and verification is done peer to peer, where code becomes law and where currency is no longer printed by the government but created in a protocol where value is being exchanged. Well this world is coming and faster than you think! Today bitcoin is equal to 740+ USD, today on the hill enthusiasts are trying to re-write policy to accept crypto-currency the law and give it ability to be easily traded and smart contracts are becoming part of the business.
What does this mean for the SAP world? Well it means a lot of change, like HANA buzz was not enough and we need something else to keep ourselves busy with. But yes this is bigger than HANA and this is even bigger than internet.
Today financial system is an archaic model which is both expensive, unnecessary complex and has a lot of useless redundant processes, and not to mention hack-able and completely corrupt. How nice would it be if all public companies opened up their ledgers and made them actually public and transparent? I know it sounds crazy, but why? If the company is public, then the ledger should be made available for all to see no? And I see SAP being front and center to develop SAP Public Ledger, forget individual GL for each client, imagine Public SAP GL on blockchain technology, imagine how much simplicity and accountability this would present where there is 1 GL and every client connects to it and runs their transactions through it. Imagine combining 250,0000 GLs into 1.
And all the public companies would have to really adhere to the same accounting rules and methods, not just on paper but in reality. How much money could be saved on auditing and legal work!
And to take you even further into this world, imagine every contract that a company does today becomes a smart contract (contract written in code) – law becomes code! Contract is written in such a way that the vendor will not be paid till every stipulation of code in the contract is peer verified and recorded on the public ledger.
Also do not forget all real assets, be it a Monet painting at Sotheby or plant owned by General Motors, every asset is digitized and can be traded. I could own a piece of Monet same as I owe today stocks in Intel. The possibilities are endless and this will change the face of our current finance system, in my mind for the better but I guess time can only tell.
To read more about blockchain technology you can do here www.blockchain.com