Outline
Open Data holds considerable economic and social value even beyond the walls of the governments and institutions that share their data. In response to the economic opportunities presented by the increasing availability of Open Data, a Business Model for Open Data needs to be developed by any Open Data-driven organizations (at all levels: Upstream, Midstream, and Downstream) in order to facilitate describe how Open Data value is created and captured by Open Data-driven organizations through the decisions made and the resulting consequences.
Links to the Revised PSI Directive
Challenge
There are still many Open Data-driven Organisations especially at midstream and downstream levels that are struggling to comprehend how Open Data can generate revenue and how they can survive in the OD industry by adapting to the changes brought on by the ubiquitous growth of Open Data and Big Data. In addition, open data-driven Organisations have difficulty distinguishing different open data business models and understanding what business model suits their organisational goal.
Solution
To exploit the value of open data, to maximise the benefits, and to enable creation of innovative Open Data products and services, open data-driven Organisations should develop and implement open data business model before starting their business. This is required to ensure that the produced open data products and services generate necessary value proposition and meet the needs and demand of the customers/users and eventually generate substantial revenue. The 6-Values Open Data Business Model Framework ensures that managers are taking into an account all aspects of an effective and efficient business model and understand the effect of the different aspects on each other.
Why is this a Best Practice?
The aim of this best practice is to provide Open Data-driven Organization’s managers the possibility to better understand the importance of Open Data Business Model and its essential aspects and that Business Model must be designed and developed even before developing organizational strategies, processes, and capabilities. Also, this best practice (report) addresses the fuzziness associated with the term ‘Open Data Business Model’ and the verities of models. Many Open Data-driven Organizations specifically at upstream levels have successfully designed, developed and implemented their Business Model. Those start ups and midstream and downstream organizations facing difficulty can make use of this best practice to overcome the challenges. Developing and implementing effective and efficient Business Model in Open Data-driven Organizations can lead to Open Data customers/users ‘satisfaction, emergence of innovative products, revenue generation and survivability of the organization and eventually can lead to maximize the economic value of Open Data.
How do I implement this Best Practice?
In order to be able to start designing and developing this best practice, an organization needs the following:
- Team up and have required expertise (preferably people with both Open Data and Business Development knowledge).
- Patience and courage in searching and sensing the market, existing Open Data products and services, potential collaborators, and existing competitors.
- Define market niche.
- Open Data Value Discipline/s must be identified before developing the Open Data Business Model.
- Having initial understanding of the available resources, processes, technologies and capabilities.
- Complete understanding on the organization's capabilities.
- Innovative and sharing culture in the organization specially in the Business Model development team.
- Use best practices – if available - on the aforementioned items.
Where has this best practice been implemented?
| Country | Implementation | Contact Point |
|---|---|---|
| Ireland | The Marine Institute | |
| USA | Open Data Impact Map |
References
- Lisbon Workshop Session: Open Data Business Model Generation (PDF) Fatemeh Ahmadi Zeleti, Insight Centre for Data Analytics
- Lisbon Workshop Paper: Realising an Open Data Marketplace in Greece (PDF) Charalampos Alexopoulos, Yannis Charalabidis, University of the Aegean
- Krems Workshop Talk: Business models for Linked Open Government Data: what lies beneath? (PDF) Nicolas Hazard; PwC
- Krems Workshop Paper: Linked Data Business Cube – Modelling Semantic Web business models (PDF) Tassilo Pellegrini; FH St. Pölten, Christian Dirschl & Katja Eck; Wolters Kluwer
- Fatemeh Ahmadi Zeleti, Adegboyega Ojo, Edward Curry (2014): Emerging Business Models for the Open Data Industry: Characterization and Analysis (PDF)
Contact Info
Fatemeh Ahmadi-Zeleti, Insight Centre for Data Analytics, NUI Galway, Ireland