Open Data Makes Enterprises Richer – Gartner Report

The explosive growth of the Internet has changed everything. Whether companies liked it or not, they found themselves working online and racking up huge amounts of data about customers and their behavior.

These days, the Internet giants do business with the information they collect about users and the knowledge obtained from the extraction. These big data information makes the organization smarter.

A recent study by Gartner predicted that big data in 2-5 years will have a transformative impact on the organization and it would reach the “peak of inflated expectations” as early as 2012.

However, Open Data especially open government data, is a tremendous resource that is yet untapped. IT companies can transform analysis of open data in a commercial product that can be delivered to business for increasing revenue and business value – analysts at Gartner maintain.

Open data, according to the research firm, can also help you make better decisions, or take a more active role in society, but the data should be freely available for everyone to use, re-use and republish without any restriction, patents, copyright law or other forms of control.

“Big data is a topic of growing interest for many business and IT leaders, and there is little doubt that it creates business value by enabling organizations to uncover previously unseen patterns and develop sharper insights about their businesses and environments,” said David Newman, research vice president at Gartner. “However, for clients seeking competitive advantage through direct interactions with customers, partners and suppliers, open data is the solution. For example, more government agencies are now opening their data to the public Web to improve transparency, and more commercial organizations are using open data to get closer to customers, share costs with partners and generate revenue by monetizing information assets.”

While there are many instances that show how open data is creating both social and economic value, a proper enterprise architects is needed in fostering information-sharing practices. New combinations of data can create new knowledge and ideas, which may lead to new applications and enhance business practices that generate growth and innovation.

“With tight budgets and continued economic uncertainty, organizations will need leaders who can craft breakthrough strategies that drive growth and innovation,” said Mr. Newman. “As change agents, enterprise architects can help their organizations become richer through strategies such as open data.”

In terms of openness of the data, the report noted that open data application programming interfaces (APIs) can help organizations to spur innovation, add new sources of revenue, improve brand equity and increase transparency.

“The challenge for organizations is to determine how best to use APIs and how an open data strategy should align with business priorities,” Mr. Newman said. “This is where enterprise architects can help. While some internal IT functions may be using APIs to fulfill local or specific application needs, the enterprise architecture process harvests and elevates good works as first-class strategic priorities that create business-focused outcomes. As a strategic enabler, APIs are a powerful means with which to build an ecosystem, and a first step toward monetizing data assets.”