20 Making Sense of Blockchain: How Firms Can Chart a Strategic Path Forward ^Top Evaluate & Implement What Are My Choices for Implementation? Implementing new technologies involves considerable risk, but firms can mit- igate many of these risks and accelerate their learning by augmenting internal investments with open and external capabilities. By making strategic choices of internal investments, alliances, and acquisitions, firms can achieve varied levels of market exploration and risk mitigation along with varied controls over resources.24 1) Internal Investments By retaining ownership and control over a technology and its related knowledge, firms often wield a competitive advantage. Firms can also strengthen their core competencies by investing in internal teams and building in-house capabilities. For instance, Microsoft is leveraging its own technology capabilities to build blockchain-based digital identities that encapsulate its users’ data. It will use these identities to custom- ize products and services at an individual level while also giving users control over their data.25 Such internal methods of experimentation can help firms preserve control over valuable resources such as customers and data.26 They can also create human resource capabilities, which are particularly valuable given the dearth of existing blockchain talent. 24 Laurence Capron and Will Mitchell, Build, Borrow, or Buy (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012). 25 Peggy Johnson, “Partnering for a Path to Digital Identity,” Microsoft (blog), January 22, 2018, https:// blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/01/22/partnering-for-a-path-to-digital-identity/. Ankur Patel, “Decentralized Digital Identities and Blockchain – The Future as We See It,” Microsoft (blog), February 12, 2018, https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/enterprisemobility/2018/02/12/decentral- ized-digital-identities-and-blockchain-the-future-as-we-see-it/. 26 Capron and Mitchell, “When to Build: Internal Development Versus External Sourcing,” in Build, Borrow, or Buy, chap. 2.