Is there a moral imperative for companies to share data?
Imagine a world where knowledge, data, insights and breakthroughs are not hoarded, but shared, with a purpose: tackling the monumental challenges facing our communities, societies and our planet. This is not a utopian ideal, but a technical reality, and more importantly, a moral imperative today.
Debates that were once the domain of Ivory Tower academics are taking center stage in the boardrooms of organizations operating in the energy, defence, transport and healthcare sectors. Plagued by years of instability, volatility, global crises, conflicts and tensions, companies are desperate for greater resilience, efficiency and competitiveness. There is growing evidence that individuals within companies are eager to collaborate in ecosystems, recognizing the magnitude of the challenges their businesses face and knowing that it is only possible to meet these challenges in collaboration with others.
But enthusiastic individuals have fought against corporate and political inertia. Amid the pandemic, the World Economic Forum highlighted a lack of will at the highest levels to collaborate across geographic boundaries. The adoption of initiatives to enable collaboration, the desire for consensus and the expectation of standardization are inhibited by self-interest and perceived commercial realities.
Founder and Head of Engagement at IOTICS.
Growing understanding
Despite a growing understanding that sharing information leads to better outcomes for customers and businesses, and as a result usually benefits people’s lives and the planet, some industries are slower than others when it comes to opening up to it sharing data in a mixed trust or zero trust. environment. Orthodoxy says that the solution consists of convincing the majority of the rightness of a particular course of action, gaining agreement on how to act, and then making changes.
That’s not how you change the world. The sad reality is that in a global marketplace, slow and steady won’t win a race. I would say this has never been the case, but it certainly won’t be the case if the race track collapses around you. Look at the healthcare sector, for example. Organizations here are dealing with more problems in more complex ways that are costlier than ever before. But these problems are being approached with 20th century budgets and ideas. As a result, many healthcare systems are at a breaking point.
Greater demands
In every aspect of our lives we see increasing demands on our resources, personal, social and managerial. One of the challenges facing the utility industry is accurately identifying and supporting customers living with vulnerabilities. Despite data sharing mandates from regulators, progress has been slow and many vulnerable customers are facing potentially dangerous situations. Utilities have customer information that, when securely available within an ecosystem, can ensure emergency response is directed to those who need it most in the event of a storm or flood. Data sharing can also help provide additional tailored support by being more flexible around payments.
On defence, despite the increased geopolitical risk, encapsulated by the idea that we are now on a pre-war footing, the UK Armed Forces are faced with an equipment funding shortfall of £17 billion over the next decade. Civil and military aerospace and industrial manufacturers are facing supply chain disruptions, rising prices and skills shortages. We simply don’t have the runway for business as usual. Isolated efforts, and worse, repeated reinvention of efforts, waste resources at every level of the supply chain.
Technology-based collaboration can inspire and accelerate societal change for a thriving planet. New technologies, approaches and capabilities are constantly being developed by brilliant individuals and organisations, but working together and leveraging expertise from different sectors, regions and organizations can deliver sustainable solutions. The automotive industry is investing in data spaces to enable interoperable supply chains, from rare earths to on-road innovation. Anchoring resilience, increasing adaptability and increasing the value of their individual expertise and specialisms.
Data has become our most valuable asset, but is often stored in silos within organizations due to technical, regulatory or commercial barriers. Concerns about intellectual property (IP), commercial assets and secrets, and cybersecurity are cited as the barrier to ecosystems operating and thriving. Technologies now exist that can mitigate these risks, enabling data sovereignty and securing collaboration without exposure to commercially sensitive or individually identifiable information.
Explore different models
Despite these innovations, there remains reluctance and reluctance to explore different models and new approaches. I passionately believe that further delay is immoral. Knowing that it is possible to tackle climate change, increase climate resilience, improve social inequality, protect the most vulnerable in our society and ensure that no one is left behind in the transition to new technologies, energy and models and action is now a choice. Hiding behind initiatives that are little more than talk shops, sustainability approaches that fail to address underlying waste, and roadmaps for change that will not have an impact for decades, if at all, is a failure of leadership.
It’s also a disservice to shareholders. I accept the commercial reality in which we all work. So let’s remove morality and talk about selfish altruism. A recent KPMG report states: ‘Every day, organizations have to deal with increasing amounts of data, coming from both inside and outside the organization. Due to centralized data ownership and data access, transparency and timeliness have become bottlenecks in many organizations.’ These bottlenecks cost money, they represent the inability to bring capabilities to market, to seize opportunities and to maximize profits. The inability to collaborate across ecosystems limits export markets, reduces resilience and hinders the innovation and adaptation needed to take advantage of new technologies.
An unwillingness to understand the need to quickly explore, leverage, and exchange data, knowledge, and systems across ecosystems is hurting your businesses. It limits the benefits of your strategy and leaves you vulnerable to the symptoms and consequences of the generational challenges we face. There may be a moral imperative for data sharing. But there is also a commercial one.
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