The big data is the new frontier of business. A global survey by Gartner estimates that by 2016, 30% of businesses driven by the financial costs of management and emerging opportunities, will monetize directly or indirectly their information assets through trade, barter or sale.
Gartner says that many companies already assess the real market value of these assets, but the lack of experience in connecting with big data creates an opportunity for the growth of intermediaries’ experts, who act as brokers or sellers information.
The need to justify the expense of accumulating and managing huge volumes of data has led many organizations to consider monetizing or productizing their information assets. For example, several retailers are already generating millions of dollars per year in incremental revenue by placing online their point-of-sale and other data for business partners to subscribe to. Other individuals have launched ventures packaging and reselling publicly available data, or using it to launch new information-based products- such as in the insurance and financial markets.
Gartner believes, therefore, that the brokerage firm will help companies develop effective strategies for monetizing their information assets, but at the same time economic organizations try to keep within this function through the introduction of new managerial figures, such as “information product manager”.
The survey further added that consumers and businesses must recognize that their personal usage, location, profile and activity data has a tangible market value. They should guard it and ensure that when they do share it they receive ample services, products or cash for it. Businesses monetizing information assets need to be sensitive to the reputational risk of public backlash against such practices that may in turn lead to a tighter regulatory environment. Even recently, the US Federal Trade Commission issued subpoenas to major information brokers against such practices.
Right now, the biggest challenge in using big data is to emphasize the need to find business value of unstructured and structured data available at enterprises’ data these days. Traditional database management system and business intelligence products and implementations are currently not well-suited to sharing data in a subscription-based manner.
A recent Pew Internet/Elon University survey found that the future evolution of big data to collect and analyze massive sets of information could lead to ground-breaking changes in business, political, and social enterprises.
