An increasing number of large businesses are developing or looking to purchase blockchain technology.

According to a Deloitte survey previewed Tuesday during this week’s Consensus 2018 conference in New York, 39 percent of the more than 1,000 global companies surveyed are planning on investing $5 million or more on blockchain technologies in the next year, and 43 percent consider blockchain a “critical” top-five strategic priority. Deloitte will be releasing the study officially next month.

These results represent “a good signal and sign that investment is going to blockchain and people are finding meaningful use cases,” according to Linda Pawczuk, a Deloitte principal.

Not Your Father’s Microsoft

In many cases, enterprise companies are reaching out for solutions. Microsoft has been a presence at Consensus for the last three years, but its cloud-based foray into blockchain came at the behest of its enterprise customers, Product Manager JT Rose said.

“This is not your father’s Microsoft,” he said. “We’ve had hundreds of customers coming to us and asking for help building with blockchain.”

Rose said blockchain applications generally have a core use case: an asset moving across corporate and trust barriers. If companies don’t have these requirements, they “will save a lot of time” by eschewing blockchain solutions, he added.

Speakers working with large industries agreed. Accenture Managing Director Sarah Banks calls blockchain an “outside-in” technology for large industries working with external partners, not a replacement for enterprise resource planning software. “You have to find the right use case,” she said.

“Blockchain is a clearly evolving area, and we intend to embrace it and maintain our leadership position,” says FedEx CEO Smith.

When evaluating use cases, “focus first on the business value and look to find the right technology to make this happen,” saidd Torsten Zube, head of blockchain for SAP, which is working to solve industrywide challenges ranging from the drug supply chain and food provenance to pallet management.

Absolutely, Positively Logistics

Logistics have been an early starting point for blockchain in the enterprise, and FedEx founder and CEO Frederick W. Smith knows something about logistics. As a startup, FedEx built the first chain-of-custody system in the early 1970s, he pointed out. As logistics have become increasingly global, blockchain “has the potential to completely revolutionize trade across borders,” Smith said. “Blockchain is a clearly evolving area, and we intend to embrace it and maintain our leadership position.”