Why external data is the fuel of tomorrow’s business success

Published in

DataScan

3 min readDec 10, 2017

Fuelling growth through data monetisation. How can we be sure that our health data is secure? The environmental case against Bitcoin.

All included in this week’s digest on the world of data. 👇🏼

Why external data is the fuel of tomorrow’s business success

Bernard Marr discusses Jorn Lyseggen’s new book, Outside Insight: Navigating a World Drowning In Data, which argues that internal data insights are yesterday’s news and external information is much more forward-looking:

While transactional data is great for giving a picture of what you sold last week, last month, or last year, insights about what you will sell tomorrow could come from a myriad of external sources.

Marr points out that this view stands in contrast to many business intelligence and analytics models, which are very introverted. Instead, companies need to be extroverts — as “mining internal data alone is a navel-grazing activity”.

The key difference is actually finding value rather than identifying past mistakes or missed opportunities.

Fuelling growth through data monetisation

A new McKinsey Global Survey shows the benefits of companies using data as a monetary asset. For example, respondents at the “fastest-growing companies” think “more critically” about “monetising their data, as well as using data in a greater number of ways to create value for customers and the business” — such as developing new products, services and even business models.

To do so, it is crucial that companies first ensure their “data-and-analytics foundations” are in place, then explore using external solutions/partners:

Such partners include analytics companies that can supplement the organization’s existing capabilities, platform providers that host tools or solutions, and data providers that can help the organisation gain access to unique data sets.
Companies can even work with suppliers, customers, or their industry peers to augment and enrich existing data; they can then offer those data as unique add-ons to existing products or services, or sell the data as part of an entirely new business.

Similarly — Chief Data Officers are increasingly being told to help monetise data, rather than just manage and protect it, according to Gartner. This is to the extent that “increase revenue” is generally a “top three measure of their success”. However, Rebecca Hill points out that this “shift in priorities” could cause issues later down the line as “data breaches make headline splashes” and people are becoming “more aware of their rights to privacy”.

New research by the Information Commissioner’s Office shows that most UK citizens don’t trust organisations with their data and they won’t trust a breached company:

70 percent of people say that they would stop doing business with companies following a data breach, but they are about to be engulfed in data breach reality with GDPR breach reporting as under-reporting of breaches is huge.

How can we be sure that our health data is secure?

Rob Waugh explores why cybersecurity is important to health providers and the benefits of the NHS safely sharing data between different systems:

Instead of waiting for records to be shared between practices, the information will follow the patient, enabling quicker and better-informed diagnosis.

But there are a range of privacy and security issues that need to be addressed first. Adopting a cloud-based approach where data is decentralised both reduces breach risk and facilitates “useful insights for doctors and researchers”.