This 1 Truth Is Why Blockchain Has The Potential To Transform Your Family Office
Blockchain technology's true power lies not just in its capabilities but in the empowerment it offers to users.
It brings efficiency to all participants across various roles, from senior-level staff to crucial administrative positions. In industries like family offices dealing with complex tasks and vast amounts of information, blockchain's ability to consolidate and distribute data creates a transformative impact. It eliminates the need for centralized intermediaries, enabling team members at all levels to collaborate seamlessly and focus on more complex tasks. Ultimately, blockchain is not about what it does but about how it empowers individuals and enhances productivity in any office environment.
Blockchain’s most significant benefit isn’t the power of the technology itself but rather the power it gives to the people who use it.
While blockchain's technological capabilities are vast, the real advantage is the efficiencies it brings to all participants, from the boardroom to the mail room, effectively empowering everyone using it to focus on higher-level work. And, as I’ve realized through developing and using iPaladin—a blockchain-based family office platform—it stands to benefit not only senior-level staff but those serving in critical administrative positions, as well.
In the family office industry, we’re managing generational family wealth. On a daily basis, we deal with a large number of documents, actions, analytics, and approvals.
Family office professionals need to be able to seamlessly switch gears between communications, records, and work processes to understand the big picture of their strategic work. With information stored in one of several locations, it must first be located, then pieced together for understanding and next steps. In short, information is fractured and siloed.
A blockchain system can drastically increase the accessibility of information as knowledge.
The critical advantage of blockchain when it comes to a private business—or really, any office in which knowledge management is the main product, like a family office—is that it gives internal and external constituents the ability to create and work from a single digitally distributed record. Traditionally, a centralized intermediary—a senior team member—would be involved in every single transaction. A, the intermediary, hands it off to B, then B gives the document back to A, then A sends off the document to C, then C returns it back to A to look over and give to D, and soon.
But with blockchain, A retains governance control over the work but doesn’t have to be the intermediary between all parties in order to maintain control over the quality of the work. Instead, A can hand off to B, B can send it along to C, and C can send it to D. A can monitor the progress from point to point, if needed, but he or she doesn’t need to touch it again until it’s ready for sign-off.
This is because the blockchain supports a system of distributed records that allows transactions to be broken down and decentralized among the permissioned team. Everyone’s actions are together on one record. Reviewers can actually see how every step was addressed with their communications, source documents, and work product. When it’s time for sign-off, all information is contextually organized with time stamps, making it easy to review and freeing up our mental space, as well as our time, for more complex tasks.
And that goes for every worker at any level of an office.
This is something I realized rather recently. I started developing iPaladin 10 years ago. For a long time, I felt that our platform’s most significant value was what it offered to senior-level knowledge workers—advisors, lawyers, and executive staff. But now, I’ve realized that every level of a family office—or any office—benefits from what blockchain offers. Because when administrative staff can see all the steps required of them as soon as they log in, they can work much more efficiently and with greater autonomy.
I’ve seen this with one of my own employees, a former Marine and highly experienced administrator with the military police. At any given time, he’s researching a slate of 15 or so client relationships. Without iPaladin, much of his time and energy would be spent “getting up to speed”—locating and tracking documents, and deciphering where a given document or contract was within a specific process. But with the blockchain, he’s able to see all of that information at a glance. He’s genuinely teed up for success. And that means, in turn, that our office is positioned to make a more significant impact for our clients.
This is why our blockchain platform, whether it’s being used in a family office or a private business, isn’t about what it does. It’s about what it empowers your people to do.
Credit - Jill Creager - President & CEO iPaladin
