#6 What is our “unfair data advantage?”
Wait, Jen, what exactly is an “Unfair Data Advantage”?!? You might say…
“When companies take advantage of their collected data in a unique way to their competitive advantage.”
Jen Cohen, 2022
For example,
- Your competitors, the market, and others don’t have this particular set of data as it’s a part of running your company that you have it in the first place.
- Competitors, the market, and others cannot leverage it — making it a unique opportunity.
One of the things I’ve learned is that everybody has some unfair data advantage, but it’s probably one of the more underutilized business advantages that I see in the industry (minus the FAANGs).
Let’s chat about some security robots. I know of a company that made security robots. When patrolling at the customer’s sites, the robots would go to each floor and almost every room to detect light, perceive movement, and collect audio and video. They could call back to the SOC (security operations center) with any issues. In order to operate these robots, the security company had to be able to detect Wi-Fi hot and cold spots; it was really about the connectivity of the robot. The same applied to the temperature: hot and cold spots could pinpoint the ambient temperature for the robots to perform, along with the robots’ other collected data to do their jobs.
It turned out there was a lot of alternative value in that data. And because it was specific to their customers, it gave the security robot company an unfair data advantage. In brief, here’s how:
- The customer’s IT department needed info on Wi-Fi hot and cold spots, but it turned out what the robot collected was way better than what they could do on their own. And because the robots were patrolling, it was constantly the most up-to-date information. This became part of their offering as a value add.
- The customer’s facilities department really wanted the data on the temperature hot and cold spots, especially the difference between off times and normal business hours. This became an add-on service.
- The security robot company could see trends across customers, leverage those, as well to build maintenance service providers,q and more.
- This opened up additional revenue streams and positively impacted customer loyalty. What’s more, it all started with unique but unused data collected for other purposes.
Follow-up Questions:
- What data do we have that our competitors don’t?
- If you could do only one data project this year to impact revenue, what would it be?
Interested in reading the full series? Links below to 7 Questions Board Members Should Be Asking
#1: What are the ages and annual costs for our most critical systems?
#2 How much tech debt do we have, and how much is it costing us annually
#3 What’s the retention rate of our technical personnel?
#4 What does keeping the technical “lights on” cost us annually?
