Digital Transformation Requires New Data-driven Business Models
Wikibon, a community of business technology practitioners founded to deliver the most actionable and real-time information available in the marketplace, predicts that:
“The big data market grew 23.5% in 2015, led by Hadoop platform revenues. We believe the market will grow from $18.3B in 2014 to $92.2B in 2026 – a strong 14.4% CAGR. Growth throughout the next decade will take place in three successive and overlapping waves of application patterns – Data Lakes, Intelligent Systems of Engagement, and Self-Tuning Systems of Intelligence.”
Big Data has entered many businesses for a while; the situation is just like e-commerce entered the business 15 years ago. However, Big Data raises the question of how far companies actually are in terms of digital transformation, and whether the users have prepared for this change.
Individual business models
Companies like Amazon or Facebook, who have set with their Internet-based business model quite early on Big Data technologies, benefit greatly from this data-driven development, as investment and efficiency are close together with them. By contrast, companies with traditional business models (such as in the financial or health sectors) will need to develop new individual business models based on Big Data technologies. Those companies can see more and more possibilities and potentials from Big Data and converts them into projects.
Choose the right approach depending on your needs
For most companies, usually the first step is not to develop a completely new business model. Often, they try to process improvements or optimization of their existing models. For example, for marketing, Big Data analytics can often be used to promote brand and product perception, and the analysis of the real-time sale data can potentially be used to create customized and targeted marketing strategies.
Competences required
Routinely visualize and investigate business data will virtually benefit any business. However, even for the same data, different groups in a company may have views from different angles. For example, marketing specialists, product experts and data scientists may have totally different perspectives. But if the various departments are pooling their expertise, new business perspectives or opportunities may be generated.
Transparency and Information
Of course, we cannot overlook the user or customer. They play a crucial role in the development of new projects or business models. Even if the data used are not personal, it is recommended over the use of data to inform customers openly and also to set the privacy measures. Only in this way the necessary confidence and reputation can be built for a company. This trust is the basis to the revenue potential that provide data-driven business models to exploit.
In summary, the digital transformation means the jump from the classical value chain to a data-driven digital ecosystem. In this transition, businesses have to ascertain even more with digital business models in their internal processes in order not to fail. However, the reward from these efforts is great – Using Big Data can help develop new business models and achieve competitive advantages.
