Data Generation
Businesses capture data through everyday operations and obtain specialty data through tracking or research. Mapping the organizations that contribute this information helps identify useful sources for a decision.
THE IDEA
Data Generation
Businesses generate data through transaction and communication systems. Much of this information serves their own operations, but intermediaries also generate data useful to other organizations. Operational intermediaries include transactional businesses that support sales or connect manufacturers and retailers, logistical businesses that distribute goods, and facilitating businesses that provide storage and supply services. Communication intermediaries enable people and organizations to interact through voice, email, and social media.
Other organizations specialize in generating information. They may track browsing or in-store promotions, conduct research through consumer panels, or derive classifications such as lifestyle segments and geodemographic profiles from existing data. These sources can complement a business’s operational records even when the providers have no direct role in its operations.
A business can map its informational ecosystem: the network of entities contributing to its available data. That map helps it identify gaps and decide which outside sources are worth obtaining.
When to use it
A logistics company maps its informational ecosystem to find new data sources (e.g., weather patterns, traffic flows) that improve route optimization.
A marketing firm combines transactional data from a client with specialty data from consumer panels to create highly targeted ad campaigns.
A startup uses incidental data from its app (e.g., user behavior) to identify trends and pivot its product strategy.
A retailer evaluating whether to purchase geodemographic data to better understand the neighborhoods surrounding its stores.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Transactional Intermediary Data Usage
A retail company using point-of-sale systems generates transactional data linking manufacturers and consumers. This data is primarily used internally for inventory management and sales analysis, but could also be combined with specialty data like lifestyle segmentation to refine marketing campaigns.
Specialty Data from Online Tracking
An organization that exists solely to track Internet browsing behaviors generates specialty data about user preferences. This data can be sold to businesses to enhance their customer profiles, even if the tracking organization is not operationally connected to those businesses.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Which data from your organization’s everyday operations could help answer a current decision?
How might you define your organization's informational ecosystem to identify valuable external data sources?
In what ways could specialty data from third-party tracking or research complement your existing operational data?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Evidence-Based Decision-Making How to Leverage Available Data and Avoid Cognitive Biases (Andrew D. Banasiewicz)