The document presents a case study analysis of business models in the business partner data domain. Six business partner data providers are examined based on their offerings, activities, resources, and business model patterns. A positioning framework is developed that categorizes data providers based on their data sourcing approach and pricing models. The study finds three common business model patterns - buyer-supplier relationships, community sourcing, and crowd sourcing. It contributes to the limited research on business models in the intangible data economy domain.

1. PD Dr.-Ing. Boris Otto, Dr.-Ing. Stephan Aier
Leipzig
February 27, 2013
Business Models in the Data Economy: A Case Study from
the Business Partner Data Domain

2. © IWI-HSG – Leipzig, February 27, 2013, Otto, Aier / 2
Agenda
1. Introduction
2. Related Work
3. Research Methodology
4. Results Presentation
5. Conclusion and Outlook

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1.1 Motivation and Research Question
 First proposals to view data as a resource were made in the 1980s (Wang et al. 1993;
Goodhue et al. 1988)
 Concepts for managing physical goods were transferred to managing the “data
resource”, e.g. TDQM (Levitin & Redman 1998; Wang 1998)
 The relevance of business partner data was recognized when studying “corporate
household data” (Madnick et al. 2002)
 The practitioners’ community observes the emergence of the “data economy” (Newman
2011)
How and why do business models of business partner data providers differ?

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1.2 Business Partner Data: An Example from a Global Electrical
Engineering and Manufacturing Group
Organisational
Data
+Name
+Block indicator
Identification
+Unique identifier
+Chamber of
commerce no.
Contact Data
+Division
+Telephone
+Email
Data Source
+System ID
+Local System ID
Address Data
+Street and city
+Country
+ZIP code
Banking
Information
+Bank
+IBAN
+BIC code
Purchasing Data
+Currency
+Incoterms
Hierarchy
Information

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2.1 Related Work on Business Model Theory
 Foundations of Business Model Theory
 Resource-Based View of the Firm (Wernerfelt 1984; Barney 1991)
 Industrial Organization Perspective (Bain 1968)
 The Strategy Process Perspective (Ginsberg 1994)
 Strategic Resources are according to Barney (1991):
 Valuable
 Rare
 In-imitable
 Non-substitutable
 Examples of recent business model work
 Business model generation (Osterwalder & Pigneur 2010)
 Electronic business models (Zott & Amit 2010)

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Market level, e.g. five forces
Offering level, e.g.
generic strategies
Activity and
organizational
level, e.g. value chain
Resource level, e.g. RBV
Market level, e.g. five
forces
and capital and labour
MARKET / INDUSTRY
Customers (1) Competition (2)
Offering (3)
Physical component Price/Cost Service component
THE FIRM
Scope of management (7) ACTIVITIES AND ORGANISATION (4)
RESOURCES (5)
SUPPLIERS (6)
Factor Markets Production Inputs
Longitudinal
dimension,
e.g. constraints on
actors, cognitive and
social limitations (7)
Human Physical Organizational
2.2 Business Model Framework by Hedman & Kalling (2003)

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3.1 Research Methodology
 Case study research was applied to study a contemporary phenomenon in its natural
environment (Benbasat et al. 1987; Eisenhardt 1989)
 Research process according to five guiding points proposed by Yin (2002)
 Conceptual framework following the business model approach by Hedman & Kalling
(2003)
 Case selection within a focus group (Morgan & Krüger 1993)
 Data collection through interviews, internal presentations, public records

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4.1 Case Study Overview
Avox Bureau van Dijk
(BvD)
Dun & Bradstreet
(D&B)
Factual Infochimps InfoGroup One
Source
Customers n/a 6,000 clients,
50,000 users.
100,000 from
various industries.
n/a n/a Several thousands.
Competitors Interactive Data,
SIX Telekurs.
D&B, among
others.
BvD, among others. Similar offering
as Infochimps.
Similar offering as
Factual.
D&B, among
others.
Offering One million
entities, three
service types, web
services.
85 million
companies, data
and software
support, web
services, sales
force.
177 million
business entities,
data and related
services, web
services, sales
force.
Open data
platform, API use
for free or at a
charge.
15,000 data sets,
open data platform,
four different
pricing models,
web service.
18 million
companies, 20
million executives,
data and software,
web service.
Activities and
organization
Data retrieval,
analysis, cleansing
and provision
Monitoring of
mergers and
acquisitions, data
analysis and
provision.
Data collection and
optimization,
provision of quality
data services.
Data mining,
data retrieval,
data acquisition
from external
parties.
Data collection,
infrastructure
development,
hosting, and
distribution.
Selection of
content providers,
data collection,
“data blending”,
data updates.
Resources 38 analysts to
verify and cleanse
data, central
database
500 employees in
32 offices, central
database (ORBIS).
More than 5,000
employees, central
database
21 employees,
central open data
platform.
Less than 50
employees, central
data platform.
104 employees.
Factor and
production inputs
Third-party
vendors, official
data sources,
customers.
More than 100
different data
sources.
Official sources,
partnering, contact
to companies
Open data
community.
Open data
community.
50 “world-class”
suppliers, 2,500
data sources.
Scope of
management
International
coverage, co-
creation,
partnering.
Global coverage,
alliances, data,
software,
consulting.
Global coverage. Start-up
company.
Start-up company. Global coverage.

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4.2 Business Model Analysis: Offering in the Case of InfoChimps
Pricing model “Baboon” “Brass Monkey” “Silverback” “Golden Ape”
Fee free 20 USD/month 250 USD/month 4,000 USD/month
Allowed API calls
per month
100,000 500,000 2,000,000 15,000,000
Allowed calls per
hour
2,000 4,000 20,000 100,000

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4.3 Key Resources of Business Partner Data Providers
Valuable Rare Inimitable Non-
substitutable
Labor Yes No No No
Expertise and Knowledge Yes Yes No Yes
Database Yes Yes No Yes
Information Technology and
Procedures
Yes No No No
Network Access and Relationships Yes Yes Yes Yes
Capital Yes Yes No No

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4.4 Business Model Patterns for Business Partner Data Providers
Pattern I
Buyer-Supplier
Relationship
Pattern II
Community Sourcing
Pattern III
Crowd Sourcing
Legend: Business Partner Data Provider Business Partner Data Consumer Data Source
Data flow.

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4.5 Resource Allocation Patterns
Information Technology and
Procedures
Network Access and
Relationships
Expertise and Knowledge
Capital
Labor
Database
low highmedium
Factual, Infochimps
Avox
BvD, D&B,
InfoGroup One
Source

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5.1 An Analysis and Positioning Framework for Business Partner Data
Providers
crowd-sourced data
unmanaged data
budget pricing
low market share
(or) niche offering
high market share
broad offering
Avox
Factual
D&B
self-sourced data
managed data
premium pricing
established crowd-sourcer well-established traditional supplier
new market entrant niche provider

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5.2 Conclusion and Outlook
 Findings
 Three business model pattern exist
 A positioning framework is suggested
 Contribution
 Among the early papers addressing business partner data domain
 Results may be applied for business models around “intangibles” in general
 Practitioners may benefit from the analysis of the domain
 Limitations
 Small case base
 Explorative nature of study, threats to generalizability

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PD Dr.-Ing. Boris Otto
University of St. Gallen
Institute of Information Management
Boris.Otto@unisg.ch
+41 71 224 3220
Your Speaker
This research was supported by
 the European Commission through the «NisB – The Network is the
Business» project
 and the Competence Center Corporate Data Quality (CC CDQ) at the
University of St. Gallen.

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