Essentially, do something more with the data than plopping it front of people. There’s a small niche (for now) as data provider. Demand is much higher for storyteller.
Actually the market place for the data provider is quite large, it is also much more profitable than being a story teller/solution provider. The business of selling data is tremendously scalable while performing analysis, developing solutions and strategies and preparing presentation decks etc require skilled labor that cannot be scaled very efficiently. In fact looking at reported earnings and NOI shows that the data providers (those publicly traded) are able to turn profits around 18% of revenue, while full service market research companies (I know that’s not everyone else) sit at around 6-7%. That said being a data provider is boring, and the personnel are easily exported when other markets offer cheap labor.
Thanks Nathan for your post and perspective, and thanks too, Craig for sharing your perspective and information. From my experience working in Open Source Economic Development, both views seem to be true in this time of transition. We’re moving beyond expansion of verticals where depth of data has value and into scaling across verticals to harvest cross discipline knowledge – which is where messengers and connectors shine with their stories of meaning and relevance. In complexity, and to fuel “Strategic Thinking” for sustainable solution finding, we’re going to need the abundance of both.
Actually the market place for the data provider is quite large, it is also much more profitable than being a story teller/solution provider. The business of selling data is tremendously scalable while performing analysis, developing solutions and strategies and preparing presentation decks etc require skilled labor that cannot be scaled very efficiently. In fact looking at reported earnings and NOI shows that the data providers (those publicly traded) are able to turn profits around 18% of revenue, while full service market research companies (I know that’s not everyone else) sit at around 6-7%. That said being a data provider is boring, and the personnel are easily exported when other markets offer cheap labor.
Thanks Nathan for your post and perspective, and thanks too, Craig for sharing your perspective and information. From my experience working in Open Source Economic Development, both views seem to be true in this time of transition. We’re moving beyond expansion of verticals where depth of data has value and into scaling across verticals to harvest cross discipline knowledge – which is where messengers and connectors shine with their stories of meaning and relevance. In complexity, and to fuel “Strategic Thinking” for sustainable solution finding, we’re going to need the abundance of both.