stakes of Big Data are focused on the integration and the development of data in the company. It deals with the issue of data valuation in a context of strong competition.
More precisely, it represents a research subject that involves several fields (Big Data, open data, data processing, innovation, economic intelligence, etc.). This multidisciplinarity allows us to bring a considerable enrichment to studies and research on the development of data warehouses in its entirety.
Information on the French population was published by various news media in 2019, for example, that published by Paul Manuel Godoy Hilario on 16 May 2019. This statistic displays an interest in the French population in the new data through the different information media in 2019. Approximately half of the respondents said they were quite interested in this news. In 2018, nearly 35% of French people turned first to generalist television channels to further develop information they had received.
Figure I.4. The Big Data turnover and market size (source: Statista). For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/monino/control.zip
Figure I.5. With what interest do you follow the news through the information media (press, radio, television)? (source: Statista). For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/monino/control.zip
This book is part of the continuation of the book Big Data, Open Data and Data Development published by ISTE and Wiley in their Smart Innovation set of books - coordinated by Dimitri Uzunidis - Innovation Research Network (Monino and Sedkaoui 2016). This book brings together all of my research work on economic intelligence over the last 20 years. Its objective is to show that the stakes of the “data revolution” era are focused on the integration and enhancement of data in the enterprise. It is part of a theme related to the rise of the intangible economy mobilizing knowledge and know-how, and highlights the importance of data. The contribution of information allows the generation of knowledge useful for decision-making, within the framework of the various activities specific to the development of the company. To do this, we must clarify what is more precisely a “Data” to be able to understand and formulate the expression “Big Data” issues.
We are going to follow this conception of EI (economic intelligence) (Monino and Boussetta 2013) step by step, based on the basic model proposed in 2005 by Monino and Lucato during the “mornings of the city” meetings at the Montpellier Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Data, information, knowledge and wisdom (decision) are all essential elements in preparing for a good decision and we will follow this in the following chapters of this book.
Notes
1 1 A call center is a center for processing incoming and/or outgoing calls.
2 2 Robert Half's study: “Les emplois en or du numérique en 2018” by Claire Jenik, Statistica, 11 Oct. 2017.
1 From Data to Decision-Making: A Major Pathway
While information is at the heart of economic intelligence, data are essential elements required to build knowledge in order to make a good decision. This is something which at the moment may seem optimal in the possible fields of its knowledge. It is the use of data that gives power. As companies become increasingly aware of the importance of data and information, they are rushing to think about how to “manage”, enrich and leverage it.
Thus, the explosion of a phenomenal amount of data, and the need to analyze them, brings to the fore the well-known hierarchical model: “Data, Information and Knowledge”. This model is often exploited in the literature on information and knowledge management. Several studies claim that the first appearance of the hierarchy of knowledge can be found in T.S. Elliot's poem “The Rock” in 1934. In recent literature, several authors cite R.L. Ackoff's 1989 publication “From data to wisdom” as a source of the hierarchy of knowledge. Indeed, this hierarchical model highlights three words: “Data”, “Information” and “Knowledge”. The relationship between these three words can be represented in the above form where knowledge is given the highest place to emphasize the fact that a great deal of data is necessary for the acquisition of knowledge.
This hierarchical model is often exploited in the literature on information and knowledge management. It can also be exploited as an approach to the concept of business intelligence.
1.1. Background on economic intelligence
In the United States, it was the work of academics in the 1960s that revealed the importance and necessity of conceiving economic intelligence as a branch of the economy. Harold Wilensky's book “Organizational Intelligence” - 1967. It defines business intelligence as the activity of producing knowledge serving the economic and strategic goals of an organization, collected and produced in a legal context and from open sources.
Stevan Dedijer in the late 1960s conceptualized “intelligence” as an economic matter, and gave a broad definition: “Intelligence is the information itself, and its processing, and the organization that deals with it, while it obtains, evaluates and uses it under more or less secret, competitive or cooperative conditions, for the purposes of conducting any social system and about the nature, capacities, intentions, actual or potential operations, of internal or external opponents.”
Klaus Knorr was one of the first to advocate a wide dissemination of Business Intelligence, starting from the university space; for him it is “the operation to obtain and process information about the external environment in which an organization wants to maximize the achievement of its different goals”. Business intelligence is becoming a major component of corporate strategy and is based on information that is the foundation of any decision-making process. Information as such had received a fundamental scientific treatment without which economic intelligence could not have developed.
In France, the contribution of a group of experts from the Commissariat Général du Plan was published in 1994 under the name of the Martre Report. This work on the “Economic Intelligence and Company Strategy” proposes a definition in the introduction to the report: “Economic intelligence can be defined as all the coordinated actions of research, processing and distribution, with a view to its exploitation, of information useful to economic players. These various actions are carried out legally with all the necessary guarantees of protection to preserve the company's assets, in the best conditions of quality, time and cost. Useful information is that which is needed by the various levels of decision-making in the company or community to develop and consistently implement the strategy and tactics necessary to achieve the objectives defined by the company in
order to improve its position in its competitive environment. These actions, within the company, are organized in an uninterrupted cycle, generating a shared vision of the objectives to be achieved ”
1.2. Strategic economic intelligence revisited
The economy has become global, it is constantly changing. This dynamic gives information, which is at the heart of economic intelligence, a speed of circulation that can lead to radical changes in the economic environment of companies. Whoever masters or attempts to master information can have a significant edge in our competitive world. It also requires the ability to understand our economic, social and financial environment and
