Challenges for digital services

Jonathan RaperPlacr Ltd

TSB Digital Services Feasibility Studies seminar

Digital challenges: TSB view

Examples of digital services• Digital delivery of content• Sensor networks for decision support• Digital transactions with government• Digital monitoring and guiding services

Challenges for Digital services

• Platforms and architectures• Digital channels• IPR in data and services• Markets and making them• Politics and open data• Economics of the business

Platforms and architectures

• Platforms: proprietary vs open frameworks• Integration of legacy & new systems• Security infrastructures• Cloud computing architectures• Designing and procuring digital capacity• API-centric design• Content management for structured data

Digital channels• Digital services need multiple parallel channels• Web/ Intranets/ mobile web simultaneously• Embedded solutions: control, but lock in• Apps: 5 major platforms to support• Example: UK TravelOptions (Placr/FasterImaging)

IPR in data and services• Can you originate the content? Usually no…• If yes

– How to protect? Embed? Watermark?– Derivation

• If you access other content– Licensing: commercial vs share-alike vs open

• Confidentiality and Know-how– Knowledge management required

• Privacy by design• IP is a game: you pay for the referee!

Markets and making them

• Digital service markets often must be made first– Can supply create demand?

• Immature markets are fragmented• Market drivers?

– B2B -> B2C– B2C -> B2B

• Disruptive technology– Incumbent reactions?

• Building trust from scratch

#opendata• ‘A philosophical and methodological approach

to the democratization of data enabling citizens to access and create value through the reuse of public sector information’

Government as a platform• If #opendata is released online through public APIs

this can create a platform supporting the development of third-party applications outside of government

• Government collects, validates and releases• Companies reformat, add value, create services• New government distribution channels needed• Currently there are still business risks in depending on

government releases• Real time data is the most demanded

Open data and services• Political context

– Accountability and transparency are powerful drivers– Need to reward politicians for the risks they take

• Economic case based on Cambridge Study• Data Stores: London DataStore, data.gov.uk• Open Gov Licence becoming a standard• Public Data Corporation planned for spring• Legacy business models yet to be resolved eg Rail

Business economic challenges• Investment cases

– Investment to make a market is highly risky– Returns are only high if 1st mover advantage

• Economics of free– If primary offer free, how to monetise? Other £££– Google & others can buy attention by cross subsidy

• Revenue models– Get the attention then charge to ease, improve

• Cost models– Zero cost businesses

Case study: Placr

• Founded to exploit open data• Open community user and contributor• Focused on transport: topical, actionable data• Data aggregation at the back end• Cloud infrastructure, developed core APIs• Free web services, free apps• Paid apps, ad-supported web content, paid API• Placr Data Store for archive access

Promoting digital services

• Partnering with the data creators• Promotion using App stores• Social media strategy• Share-alike partnerships• Press campaigns

DS Business opportunities

• New distribution channels• Products at new levels of aggregation• Compliance-related e.g. carbon, data release• Decision support apps

Contact

http://www.placr.co.ukjonathan.raper@placr.co.uk

UK TravelOptions apphttp://www.tube-radar.com/