Data services provision has come full circle. In the past, data services were left to bureaux specialists with their backrooms of mainframes, technical personnel and programming experts. Data was considered a black art mastered by the very few and accordingly charged at premium rates.
This has all changed. Computer hardware costs are now almost irrelevant with even sophisticated prospect pools being run from laptops. The same applies for software with off-the-shelf packages like Fast Stats gaining a huge following amongst clients and agencies alike. Even ad hoc data processing jobs such as dedupes and data cleansing can be undertaken with off-the-shelf software and via online facilities.
This has left data processing bureau facing some stark choices: either provide value-added services like analytics or own and sell data itself.
The growth in analytics is already slowing and looks set to continue. Why? There are more packages and software becoming available which, coupled with the ‘mystique’ of data analysis slowly being uncovered, means more companies will undertake these processes in-house or use online facilities.
As for the owning and selling of data, this is undoubtedly a new route to generate income. However, offering a data management service whilst simultaneously owning and selling data can be of great concern to many clients due to the inherent conflict of interests.
However, amidst these structural changes, the data industry stands accused of forgetting the primary element of all data management – people. Despite considerable hardware and software advances, the ‘people factor’ in data management has never been more important.
Why? Twenty years ago the main cost of data processing was hardware followed by software. Now, with hardware and software costs significantly reduced in percentage terms, the people element of data management is now the primary cost. Suddenly people are taking centre stage again.
High service levels, data quality provision and gold standard DQM will be the new ‘point of difference’ in data services. This can only be welcome news for everyone, coming as it does at a time of increased public and legislative scrutiny.
Jed Mooney
Managing Director
Datahold
Source: Data Strategy
Publication Date: September 2008