How to become a data-centric company
The mainstream adoption of big data is just now starting. Now, it’s time to figure out what to do with all this data – and how to exploit it for competitive advantage. Ultimately, companies use data – big or not – to solve business problems. The data-centric company, however, doesn’t just treat data as an asset – it treats data as gold – and they’re willing to pay for it, too. In fact, many data-centric companies don’t even look like data-centric companies at first glance, rather they masquerade as “service providers” – like Google’s search engine or Amazon’s online retail platform –, providing services with the end goal of simply collecting data. In fact, Amazon pioneered this strategy of collecting and exploiting data by layering user data on top of open ISBN data to create new value. Other companies design loyalty programs to drive data collection, like, for example, customer rewards programs at grocery stores or gas stations. By offering discounts on seemingly random products o...