Organizations are sitting on terabytes of data that only they can access. While it is highly valuable when used to inform key decisions for an individual company, the true power of data lies in collaboration between organizations. However, concerns usually arise over ownership and control when talking about data collaboration due to privacy, IP and security complexities.
Data collaboration could help advance solutions to some of humanity’s greatest challenges, from tackling climate change to making progress on treatments for cancer or dementia. Yet despite these tantalizing opportunities, organizations are wary of privacy risks, regulatory fines, reputational damage and threats to their commercial success.
A mindset shift is required to leverage the benefits of seamless data collaboration, which will only happen when we realize that data does not need to be shared for collaboration to occur.
Unlocking the Benefits of a Federated Data Ecosystem
A fundamental challenge faced by those trying to collaborate is the existence of multiple datasets that sit in different environments and are not being used for various reasons – including concerns over data sensitivity, a desire to protect IP and technical complexities around integration. Another barrier to contend with is interoperability and the need to comply with an agreed data model to support the accessibility of data across parties. These are all surmountable challenges.
The safest way that siloed data can be worked on collaboratively is in a federated data ecosystem, where its value can be safely unlocked and interpreted without leaving an organization’s server. Federated data ecosystems solve the problem of working across organizational and geographical boundaries, as sensitive data never leaves its secure environment. That means the data remains governed by the privacy laws in the owner’s jurisdiction and IP remains protected.
Data ecosystems in key industries such as healthcare are currently blocked by regulation, governance and privacy requirements. In some cases, organizations cannot collaborate on data simply because of technical restrictions and company policy.
The growing value of data economies underlines the need for organizations to manage and work together on data: In Europe alone they are set to be worth €550bn by 2025 as public and private sector organizations across nearly every sector seek to leverage data to strengthen value chains. As regulation around data continues to change, with the UK recently hinting at plans to replace GDPR, the layers of complexity are only bound to increase.
Don’t Share – Collaborate
By allowing organizations to access each other’s data and collaborate safely across geographical and organizational boundaries, we can unleash a new wave of innovation.
A decentralized, federated approach allows multiple parties to have complete control over data governance and, in turn, ensures security, privacy and IP protection. As data sovereignty and provenance are retained due to the data not moving, organizations can demonstrate traceability for audit and compliance purposes.
Many companies in value chains own complementary data sets that, when combined, can offer incredible potential for new learning or business opportunities. Whether that’s speeding up the discovery of new drugs as pharma companies and healthcare providers work more closely together or optimizing production processes in manufacturing to make supply chains more resilient and sustainable, collaborations with multiple parties at scale can help us solve some of the world’s biggest problems.
The events of the last few years, from the global pandemic to the growing effects of climate change on our living environments, have shown us that the world’s largest problems require collaborative efforts to solve because no one organization has all the data required to address those challenges. Access to the right data should not be the limiting factor to finding solutions and accelerating innovation.