HI6008 - Business Innovation Through Open Data: A Literature Review

This literature review examines the impact of open data policies on business innovation. It begins by defining open data and its various users, from casual to technical, highlighting the importance of tailored data systems. The review then discusses how open data initiatives, initially driven by government policies, have spurred innovation in the private sector by providing access to crucial information and fostering entrepreneurial opportunities. It emphasizes the role of open data in identifying market gaps, enabling product development, and improving business efficiency through feedback loops. The review concludes that open data has significantly contributed to the development of new products and services by providing essential customer insights and supporting data-driven decision-making.

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BUSINESS: LITERATURE REVIEW ON BUSINESS INNOVATION THROUGH OPEN
DATA
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Introduction
Business innovations have characterized the modern corporate world which has rapidly
increased because of the recent advancement in technology. Information plays a very vital role in
business development and provides a full scope of the business from the business products,
strategies and their interaction with their customers as well as the development of the plan. The
emergence of big data and computing technologies has strengthened the growing need for
business information made available to various users (Kitchin, 2014, p. 40). Most business has
adopted innovation strategies and product diversification portfolio as a channel to increase the
business competitiveness globally. The rise of open data in business development has
revolutionized most business operations with most businesses both small and large corporation
recognizing the importance of public data policies in their organization or activities. Enterprises
have therefore embraced these open data strategies or plans to create innovative business
solutions and fill the existing market gaps (Zuiderwijk et al. 2014, p. 22). Such an approach or
policy will not only help in generating income for the business but also will add value to the
company through social, environmental and economic benefits. This essay, therefore, seeks to
provide a literature review of how business innovations have increased as a result of open data
strategies or policies in businesses. The literature review will also give an overview of business
innovations through open data across different business sectors.
Project objective
To provide an understanding of mobile computing technology, its development and
contribution to the development of business opportunities and the impact it has on business.
Project scope

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The scope of the study will focus on the business innovation through open data. It will
defining the project objective or what the project seeks to achieve while highlighting the specific
areas of interest in understanding open data. It will then focus on the development of the
literature review through understanding of the concept of mobile computing concept of the topic.
Literature Review
The concept of open data has continued to be embraced by many businesses and has been
considered to be a new strategy of improving business innovations and contribute to increased
income generation as well as exploiting the existing market gaps. Data or information is
supposed to be one of the most valuable resources in businesses, and its value can be attributed
to the number of things the data is committed to perform or achieve in any business enterprise
(Barry & Bannister, 2014, p. 137). Data varies from one business to the other and also from one
industry to the other and so does the user of the same information do. In business, data may be
used for various purposes and may range from customer-related data, financial data, market data,
product data, and technological data among other forms of data. The data may be casual, semi-
technical or even technical data and therefore we may have occasional data users, semi-technical
data users as well as professional data users. This means that for data to be considered desirable
or useful, it will depend on the type of user to that information.
Understanding of Open data and the Users of Open data
Open data can be described as the information that is made available for anyone to
access, use or even share. There are standard features of open data or specific characteristic
features which can be used to show that indeed the data is free to access, use and share. Among
those features is the ability to use freely and reuse the information or data. This means that the

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information can be obtained without any legal restriction and can be used for any purpose
(Janssen & Zuiderwijk, 2014, p. 707). Secondly, open data is free to be distributed implying that
the user of the information is free to distribute the data itself. It also means that the users are not
allowed to disseminate the information; it is the information that should be able to spread itself to
different users. Lastly, open data should be freely available and accessible on the internet without
any authentication or approval requirements.
Most business has, therefore, embraced the strategy of open data or formulated open data
policy to create more interaction opportunities for the company with their customers or even
their potential investors. On the most successful businesses has been the Amazon Company that
has experienced excellent business growth from their previous online retail activities to
becoming suppliers of cloud computing information which has become core in every business
(Davies & Perini, 2016, p. 12). Such a transformation can as a result of their management
decided to change their existing policy and adopt an open data policy. A not only business that
has approved the use of public data policy but most important the different government
especially the UK government and states have considered to pursue open data policies as a
critical driver to economic growth and business innovations.
Due to the existence of different users of open data, most companies have focused on
developing open data of different formats to cater for the different users. The casual users are the
ordinary people, and in the most case have no in-depth knowledge on the data, and therefore they
tend to use the information as it is provided on the internet (Gurin, 2014, p. 8). Thus for the sake
of these users companies have been able to develop or present the data in a human-friendly
fashion on the internet. The semi-technical data users have a little or professional knowledge or
even some technical skills to handle the data. They can, therefore, manipulate the information

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manually and draw some conclusions. The data should be presented in a human-friendly manner
in a way that facilitates machine capabilities. The technical data users have excellent technical
skills to handle large volumes of data, and therefore they require open data which is raw and pure
to allow the machines to read and transform the data into different formats according to their
requirements (Donker & van Loenen, 2016, p. 44). They can conduct more sophisticated analysis
for various business functions. There is, therefore, a great need to develop data systems which
will cater for the interest of these users and improve the efficiency of open data in enhancing
business growth and innovations.
Business Innovations through Open data
The concept of open data began with the government initiatives through the G7 which
proposed the need for the governments to allow or adopt open data policies in a move to spur
economic growth and development. However, most governments and states have been reluctant
in implementing these policies (Lindman et al. 2016, p. 56). Most recently now most of them are
considering the plans as grand potential avenues for economic growth and development. This is
because open data encourages excellent innovation and citizens in most cases have been
struggling to receive the information they want because most government agencies or
departments were found to publish different details from the actual expected data. Open data
policies reduce the barriers to entry into businesses world and increase competition between the
government corporate bodies and the private sector. Many governments have not yet complied
with this decision, however; the UK has been n forefront to implement the policy in their
economy (George et al. 2014, p. 324). Open data policies by most governments aimed to
promote transparency and create efficiency in government operations and service delivery to its
citizens.

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The recent developments in adoption and implementation of open data have not only
come to meet government objectives but have significantly improved the private sector as well as
presenting a potential platform for innovation and increased business value. Open data allows
different users to access to various information from internet sources about a company, products,
the current business trends and also enable them to keep them updated with technological
advancements. Open data has therefore acted as a significant catalyst to the entrepreneurial
spirits (Schimmer et al. 2015, p. 27). Open data presents start-up opportunities and especially for
the new digital age to develop new products and services through innovations. Open data has
therefore provided critical business insights which have been utilized by not only small and
middle-sized businesses but also a large corporation. Most business innovations come up as a
result of experimenting business hypothesis or hypothesis testing. Successful hypothesis testing
can only achieve a though information research to identify existing market gaps. The small-scale
businesses or startups have been considered to be the most beneficiaries of open data with the
UK public data institute providing that they account for 70% of the users while the large business
enterprises account for 8%. Regarding industries, the information and communication sector has
the highest percentage of 54 percent (Martin et al. 2013, p. 352). The communication and
information sector has dramatically been impacted by technological advancements which have
created the need for increased technical innovations and therefore has led to increased
competition. The provision of open data has enabled the entrepreneurs in the sector to identify
the existing gaps in the market.
Open data has been able to promote the development of business innovations by
providing an opportunity for entrepreneurs to identify the current business patterns and
opportunities faster compared to their competitors. Open data allows the entrepreneurs to access

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information from different internet sources and then analyze the information to make meaningful
conclusions. Once they have examined the information, they can venture into developing the
knowledge for the benefit of their businesses (Assunção et al. 2013, p. 13). The success of the
company will, however, be determined by the ability of the entrepreneurs or business to employ
the use of practical data analysis tools. The patterns may be related to the product development
where the entrepreneurs can get insights on the performance of the specific product in the market
and determine whether to venture the same product line or should develop a new product that
will rival the existing market.
The open data allows the businesses to learn about the performance of their products in
the market by conducting product market analysis and also engaging in receiving feedback from
their customers. Such an opportunity helps the company to enhance the qualities of their product
in the market or change their product line by innovating new product which will bring
competition to the industry (Martin et al. 2013, p. 306). The open data allows the businesses to
conduct a comparative analysis of their products with those of their competitors and develop
strategies to improve their competitive strategy or even create new products in the market.
It is also important to note that business transformation and innovation has been brought
about by the ability of Open data to allow businesses run more efficiently and productively. This
has been achieved through the creation of a feedback loop from the increased data sets available
from internet sources, the market sources as well as the internal sources (Rehman et al. 2016, p.
922). The information can be analyzed and used to make a practical decision about business
development. Open data policies have contributed significantly to spurring innovation in the
business sector. It has led to the development of new products and services. Information is one of
the most significant resources a company or business can possess. Through open data, the

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companies can identify market gaps regarding product line and venture into the development of a
new product in a move to close the gap. This has been one of the most successful strategies in the
service sector where entrepreneurs identify market gaps by doing research on consumer needs
and developing new products to cater for the differences by providing solutions to their
problems.
Open data provides essential customer insights by analyzing the consumer behaviors and
trends. With high data analysis tools, businesses can use this information to their benefit in
improving their marketing strategies for their products which in turn lead to increased sales. It
may also be precious regarding helping the business make the right product decisions which are
customer centered. It has become the new business development strategy not only for the small-
scale companies or the micro enterprises but also the vast business enterprise (Dawes et al. 2016,
p. 21). Open data has enabled many businesses to reduce their operating costs such as the
information collection costs, distribution cost and access to information costs. According to a
report released by Deloitte on the open data as the new business innovation strategy, they
identified Google as one of the businesses which have embraced the policy of free data by
presenting its information and availing it to the public. They believe that this open access to
information provides an excellent opportunity to generate a good return on investments.
Through open data, businesses have opened up to more business collaborations through
efficiently partnering with different partners as well as company suppliers. Such a collaboration
b leads to increase company or business resource base and increase the company productivity
and innovative power. Through open data, businesses give data or information to their customers
who end up helping the customers get the best deals from the company and ends up improving or
building a business relationship with the customers which is essential for business development

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(Bertagnolli et al. 2017, p. 9). Open data facilitates the customer with an opportunity to engage
more with the business and will feel free to participate with companies that are more open with
their data. Such engagements will help the company or industry receive positive or negative
feedback about company products which is helpful in making product development decisions.
Open data policies will help the costumers compel most businesses to provide their company
information and contribute to increased transparency.
Challenges to business innovations through open data
Despite the recent developments and adoption of public data policies by various
governments and businesses, the growth rates have significantly been low. Most companies are
still using their traditional business models with the private sector embracing the open data
policy more compared government institutions, departments or institution (Neumaier et al. 2017,
p. 18). Most companies and businesses have therefore considered maintaining their privacy by
not disclosing their business information to the public, the disclosure of the information is
usually selective where the companies provide the information they find essential to the society
but not what the public wants.
Any information that is digitalized or made available in the various digital forms is
subject to manipulation, copying, data mining, matching or even being used for a range of
business purposes. This has made many businesses consider the open data as invasive to their
privacy. The internet has continued to experience significant cybersecurity issues which have
caused many organizations. Most organizations and industry, therefore, fear to lose their
information in the hands of unauthorized people (Zuiderwijk et al. 2014, p. 9). There is still a

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fear that open data exposes the company to the risk of competition from the company
competitors as they will be in a position to understand the different strategies employed by the
businesses to remain competitive in the market. Open data is faced with a significant challenge
of collaboration between the players or the parties involved. These include the companies or
businesses providing the information, the users of the information as well as the system
developers who develop data systems. Lack of collaboration pushed by different interests of the
parties has led to slow adoption and implementation of the policies globally.
Open data has, therefore, become the new business model in the modern corporate world
with many businesses utilizing the new platform to increase business innovation of new products
as well as services. Trade is believed to result from conceptualization of business ideas;
information, therefore, serves as the foundation of any business since it brings out new ideas
(Zuiderwijk et al. 2015, p. 432). Firms should, therefore, utilize open data model as a new
business initiative aimed at improving the performance of the company regarding product
development, customer engagement and service delivery. With the increased number of national
governments adopting this policy and the new call by the international businesses to embrace the
open data initiative, the expectation is that open data will transform activities and contribute to
increased business innovations through new product development and service provision
(Brunswicker et al. 2015, p. 1252). Identifying a new market niche as well as product
diversification strategy will remain to be the essential factors to consider when adopting an open
data policy or model in your business. However, developing security control measures will be a
great venture and should not be seen as a strategy to limit access to open data but should be seen
as an initiative to increase the quality of the information being made available on the internet and
another website about business.

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Conclusion
From the above literature review, open data has indeed become the new business model
for much business and especially the micro-enterprises. The new model has opened great
opportunities for business and entrepreneurs to increase their innovative powers and come up
with new products and services in a bid to close the existing market gaps. However, we should
understand that the success of the open data policy or model in business will depend on the
ability of the company to utilize appropriate data analysis tools which will aid in the
development of useful economic conclusions. Despite the rapid growth of the open data model as
an excellent business innovation platform, there is a need to protect business s privacy by
controlling or having security measures to control or limit the users from misusing the
information for other malicious purposes as may have a negative impact on the businesses. The
control, however, should be aimed at increasing the quality of open data and not limiting the
access.

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List of references
Assunção, M.D., Calheiros, R.N., Bianchi, S., Netto, M.A. and Buyya, R., 2015. Big Data
computing and clouds: Trends and future directions. Journal of Parallel and Distributed
Computing, 79, pp.3-15.
Barry, E. and Bannister, F., 2014. Barriers to open data release: A view from the top.
Information Polity, 19(1, 2), pp.129-152.
Bertagnolli, M.M., Sartor, O., Chabner, B.A., Rothenberg, M.L., Khozin, S., Hugh-Jones, C.,
Reese, D.M. and Murphy, M.J., 2017. Advantages of a truly open-access data-sharing
model.pp. 1-15.
Brunswicker, S. and Vanhaverbeke, W., 2015. Open innovation in small and medium‐sized
enterprises (SMEs): External knowledge sourcing strategies and internal organizational
facilitators. Journal of Small Business Management, 53(4), pp.1241-1263.

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Davies, T. and Perini, F., 2016. Researching the emerging impacts of open data: revisiting the
ODDC conceptual framework. The Journal of Community Informatics, 12(2).
Dawes, S.S., Vidiasova, L. and Parkhimovich, O., 2016. Planning and designing open
government data programs: An ecosystem approach. Government Information Quarterly,
33(1), pp.15-27.
Donker, F.W. and van Loenen, B., 2016. Sustainable business models for public sector open data
providers. JeDEM-eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government, 8(1), pp.28-61.
George, G., Haas, M.R. and Pentland, A., 2014. Big data and management. Academy of
management Journal, 57(2), pp.321-326.
Gurin, J., 2014. Open data now: the secret to hot startups, smart investing, savvy marketing, and
fast innovation. McGraw Hill Professional.pp. 8.
Janssen, M. and Zuiderwijk, A., 2014. Infomediary business models for connecting open data
providers and users. Social Science Computer Review, 32(5), pp.694-711.
Kitchin, R., 2014. The data revolution: Big data, open data, data infrastructures and their
consequences. Sage.pp. 1-6.
Lindman, J., Kinnari, T. and Rossi, M., 2016. Business roles in the emerging open-data
ecosystem. IEEE Software, 33(5), pp.54-59.
Martin, S., Foulonneau, M., Turki, S. and Ihadjadene, M., 2013, June. Open data: Barriers, risks
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Martin, S., Foulonneau, M., Turki, S. and Ihadjadene, M., 2013. Risk analysis to overcome
barriers to open data. Electronic Journal of e-Government, 11(1), pp.348-359.
Neumaier, S., Polleres, A., Steyskal, S. and Umbrich, J., 2017, July. Data Integration for Open
Data on the Web. In Reasoning Web International Summer School (pp. 1-28). Springer,
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Schimmer, R., Geschuhn, K.K. and Vogler, A., 2015. Disrupting the subscription journals’
business model for the necessary large-scale transformation to open access.pp. 27.
ur Rehman, M.H., Chang, V., Batool, A. and Wah, T.Y., 2016. Big data reduction framework
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Zuiderwijk, A. and Janssen, M., 2014. Open data policies, their implementation and impact: A
framework for comparison. Government Information Quarterly, 31(1), pp.17-29.
Zuiderwijk, A., Helbig, N., Gil-García, J.R. and Janssen, M., 2014. Special Issue on Innovation
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