Moving from data analytics to monetization - is this going to be a new trend in a couple of years?

Financial-services firms collect a lot of data related to their consumers even if it is not relevant to them e.g. consumer's shopping and behavior data. This data is often overlooked and they do not recognize that they have valuable assets that can be used by retailers, insurance companies, and even internally for consumer and commercial banking. Same is the case with other competitive industries like retailers, healthcare, telecommunication, media and entertainment industry, where there is abundant data and can be put into cross-industrial/company use. That is why companies (not just financial services but also companies like Tesco) are shifting their focus towards mining valuable and untapped/under tapped data to create new revenue streams. Companies are adopting data-selling ventures in which they convert they raw data into something useful, valuable, insightful and presentable and sell it to their existing or new partners, consumers and anyone who is looking for that data. However, this raises a lot of data privacy issues and this also seemed to be a big concern when I talked about monetizing data in class.

The article "Big data, monetization and the future of business" by Narendra Mulani talks about the three strategies that need to be considered before selling consumer data:
1. Reward consumers for sharing data: For example, give reward points or small cash incentives to those consumers who are willing to share their bank transaction history with Amazon or Google (through opt-in). However, keep in mind that companies need to act in the best interest of the consumers and gain their trust to provide them with better services.
2. Find new avenues for data collaboration: For example, companies need to think broadly and find other partners to realize mutual gains through data sharing. If retailers are sharing their data with companies like AC Nielsen, they should feel comfortable that it will help them gain competitive advantage and generate new revenue stream for them. However, companies need to adopt this trend rapidly to succeed.
3. Test or acquire emerging technologies: For example, Square enables stores to accept card payments using smart phone or tablet. But the real benefit from this technology will come from the ability for stores to more easily gain insights into their consumers' precise shopping habits.