Data is the new global commodity

According to McKinsey Global Institute (2016) the global trade of goods has slowed (or flattened relative to GDP) since the Global Financial Crisis 2008, in particular the slowdown in the commodities trade is said to be responsible for ¾ of this. But it’s not just trade of goods, financial flows (cross-border lending) have slowed too — in real terms a drop of 14% from 2007 to 2014.

Rather than a global recession, we are seeing growth in other areas of the global economy such as services (although this remains small at < 7% of global GDP). This biggest growth area however is in digitization and in particular the vast volumes of data that are being used and transmitted in support of the global economy. Cross border bandwidth has grown 45 times larger over the past decade- and may grow another 9 times larger by 2021 (McKinsey 2016). There are a variety of reasons for this as we engage in commerce that crosses physical borders in operations, supply and customers.

The rise of digital platforms such as Facebook, Netflix, LinkedIn, Kickstarter provides the means for a truly global connectivity. The barriers to entry have in some cases been reduced or eliminated. Goods can be delivered instantly with near-zero transmission costs e.g. e-books, apps, games. This translates into real dollars for those that can harness the potential or develop their niche. For example E.L.James (author and one of Time’s World’s 100 Most Influential People:2012) who went from fan fiction writer to viral marketing sensation supported by the ‘discreet’ e-book delivery channel. We are now also in an age of the Internet of Things (IoT) where the ‘common internet’ (or the internet of the people) which allowed for anytime, anyplace connectivity for anyone and has now been augmented to be anytime, anyplace, anyone with anything (Olson 2015). This alone means that by 2050 it is estimated that we will have in excess of 100 billion internet enabled devices worldwide (Brody, P., et al., 2015), each device sending and receiving data about us.

We are on the brink of something that has the capacity to significantly change our lives in ways we haven’t yet fully understood. Not since the industrial revolution have we seen a time where technology has the potential to impact so many aspects of our daily lives.

Increasing levels of data usage — what do our increasing appetites for data mean for businesses and ICT in meeting customer demands and expectations? Whether it be BYOD in workplaces and classrooms or an ever increasing expectation that the services and information we ‘require’ are available 24/7. Organisations are facing higher worker and customer demand for data-enabled activities. This then must impact on how ICT is provisioned in order to take into account such things as data volumes, velocity, variety of formats, variability of timing (peaks and troughs) and the complexity of data coming from a diverse number of sources (Kshetri, 2014).

Topics for further investigation include;

Vulnerabilities

With more than 10 billion internet enabled devices worldwide and projections ever upward, our increasing surface area leaves us vulnerable to attack. Now we are living in ‘the cloud’ what are the implications for data sovereignty for companies, governments and individuals?

“Globalization will make our societies more creative and prosperous, but also more vulnerable” (Lord Robertson, Scottish Diplomat, born 1946)

Commoditization of data

How do you take this new globalized ‘raw material’ and make it ‘value-add’ for different types of usage?

Our need for convenience

Driven by our ever increasing need for convenience, what are the implications for privacy when there are no borders and when we have no knowledge of aggregation routines which take our raw data and use it in other ways? Should we concerned about this and are we even aware of the trade-offs?

References

Brody, P., & Pureswaran, V. (2015). The next digital gold rush: How the internet of things will create liquid, transparent markets. Strategy & Leadership, 43(1), 36.

Kshetri, N. (2014). Big data ׳s impact on privacy, security and consumer welfare. Telecommunications Policy, 38(11), 1134–1145.

McKinsey Global Institute (2016), Digital Globalization: The New Era Of Global Flows.

Olson, N., Nolin, J. M., & Nelhans, G. (2015). Semantic web, ubiquitous computing, or internet of things? A macro-analysis of scholarly publications. Journal of Documentation, 71(5), 884–916. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2013-0033