The Data Industry

CHAPTER 7BUSINESS MODELS IN THE DATA INDUSTRY

Peter Drucker, a widely acclaimed management theorist, makes the important point in his 1999 book Management that from the perspective of the enterprise, the competition between enterprises is “not the competition of products but the competition of business model [56].” That is to say, from the perspective of an industry, the way a business model fares among competing business models can increase (or decrease) its industry profits and even create changes in the industry. Such changes in traditional industries often allow emerging industries opportunities to develop. Business model innovation, for the purpose of deploying an original business model, has been especially important in the development of the emerging data industry.

7.1 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF THE BUSINESS MODEL

In defining what constitutes a business model, scholars have been keen on elaborating the annotation and classification of a business model. Since the 1950s, there have been hundreds of such definitions. The most cited was suggested in 1998 by Paul Timmers [57] who defined a business model as “an architecture for the product, service and information flows, including a description of the various business actors and their roles; a description of the potential benefits for the various business actors; and a description of the sources of revenues.” The most widely accepted business model definition today is that from Clarifying Business Models: Origins, Present, and Future ...