Research conducted by Gartner Inc. predicts a 50 percent increase in overall data quality by 2023 for all businesses and organizations using blockchain smart contracts.

“When an organization adopts blockchain smart contracts, whether externally imposed or voluntarily adopted, they benefit from the associated increase in data quality,” said Lydia Clougherty Jones, senior research director at Gartner, in a recent blog post.

However, data availability is set to decline over the same period due to blockchain technology replacing traditional business processes. By initiating smart contracts and eliminating all access to data otherwise available from third-party intermediaries it would remove those third parties from the transaction.

“This variable could leave participants in a worse position than if they did not participate in the blockchain smart contract process. As such, an organization’s overall data asset availability would decrease by 30 percent by 2023,” added Jones.

Gartner’s recent report, “Predicts 2020: Data and Analytics Strategies — Invest, Influence and Impact” (paywalled), also said smart contract technology remains very much in its infancy, with globalized organizations slow to adopt it.

The net impact, however, is a positive result for data and analytics return on investment (ROI), the report noted.

Smart contracts are programs or protocols operating on a blockchain that facilitate, verify or execute business processes triggered by events as well as on-chain transactions or interactions with other smart contracts.

According to Gartner’s 2018 Chief Data Officer survey, the most successful data and analytics leaders embrace blockchain and smart contracts to "enable and drive data program success."