The Data Companies Wish They Had
FOR SOME companies, big data isn't quite big enough yet.
These firms already collect loads of information about their customers and suppliers—but that has only whet their appetites for even more. Some retailers want to see what customers buy from other stores, for instance, while health providers want a real-time rundown on their patients' vital stats to get an early warning about potential health problems.
We asked companies what data they wish they had—and how they would use it. Here's what they said.
What's for Dinner?
Graze.com has a huge appetite for data. Every hour, the mail-order snack business digests 15,000 user ratings about its foods, which it uses to better understand what its customers like or dislike and to predict what else they might like to try. And Graze, which is based in London and recently entered the U.S. market, does real-world experimenting: Among the snacks it sends subscribers, it includes foods that Graze's in-house algorithm has a hunch they'll enjoy—like black-pepper rice crackers or salt-and-vinegar almonds.
Chief Executive Anthony Fletcher thinks more data could help him understand customers' tastes even better. Among the information he wants most is data about customers' dietary habits, such as what they buy at grocery stores, as well as better information about what they look at on Graze's own site. And because the dietary needs of children change rapidly, he'd like to know if his customers have children and, if so, their ages.
"If you get the data right, that's a new type of discovery—introducing people to new foods," Mr. Fletcher says. "It's the start of the journey."
The Price of Power
Savant Systems LLC, of Hyannis, Mass., makes hardware and software that allows homeowners to control almost all of their electronic devices using their smartphones.
Energy consumption is among its customers' main concerns, says CEO William Lynch. For instance, the company offers a product giving homeowners the real-time ability to see things like how many kilowatts it takes to heat the hot tub in January.
Because of privacy concerns, Savant doesn't collect homeowners' energy data. But Mr. Lynch says if the company knew more about customers' energy use, it could help create customized plans to conserve energy. "We could make recommendations on how to set up your thermostat to save a lot of money," Mr. Lynch says. "We could take that data and refine it over time to help some people manage their homes more smartly."
Looking at Loans
A San Francisco-based subsidiary of BNP Paribas SA, BNP.FR +1.75% Bank of the West, operates more than 700 branches in 20 states. Chief Information Officer Kirsten Garen says the company has gathered terabytes of information about its customers and has been able to use them to create better tiered prices.
But Bank of the West would like "predictive life-event data" about its customers—like graduation, vacation or retirement plans—to create products more relevant to their financial needs, says the bank's head of product strategy, Alan Newstead. At this point, however, collecting that breadth of data is a logistical and regulatory challenge, requiring very different sources both inside and outside the bank.
An Eye on Appliances
Whirlpool Corp. WHR +0.87% , the Benton Harbor, Mich., appliance maker, has a vast reach in American households—but wants to know more about its customers and how they actually use its products. Real-time use data could not only help shape the future designs of Whirlpool products, says CIO Mike Heim, but also help the company predict when they're likely to fail. The technological costs, which have made this kind of real-time monitoring prohibitive, are continuing to decline, says Mr. Heim.
Taking Patients' Pulse
Spun off from the Cleveland Clinic, Explorys creates software for health-care companies to store, access and make sense of their data. It holds a huge trove of clinical, financial and operational information—but would like access to data about patients at home, such as their current blood-sugar and oxygen levels, weight, heart rates and respiratory health. Having access to that information could help providers predict things like hospitalizations, missed appointments and readmissions and proactively reach out to patients, says Sarah Mihalik, a vice president of provider solutions.
Wearable devices already exist to monitor and transmit patients' data. But cost, privacy and a lack of standardization are big barriers, says Explorys co-founder and Chief Medical Officer Anil Jain.
Under the Microscope
By analyzing patient data, Carolinas HealthCare System of Charlotte, N.C., can predict readmission rates with 80% accuracy, says Michael Dulin, chief clinical officer for analytics. It's working to predict chronic problems including asthma and diabetes using social and economic data, from violent-crime rates to educational attainment in patients' neighborhoods, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Studies Program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
But access to genomic data could give providers greater insight into patients' risks for disease and help providers offer much more personalized care. Genetic data might reveal, for example, that certain medications are significantly better than others, Dr. Dulin says.
Carolinas HealthCare's oncology teams already use genomic data, but it has yet to be used beyond cancer care, largely because of cost issues and the lack of ethical guidelines around genomic data.
Playing Better Defense
Historically, law firms that specialize in defense work, like Seyfarth Shaw LLC, are reactive: When clients are sued, they respond. But Ken Grady, CEO of the Chicago-based firm's consulting subsidiary SeyfarthLean, would like the ability to predict lawsuits—and prevent them.
How? By analyzing reams of contracts and looking for common traits and language that often lead to problems. For instance, he says, "do we find that a company's standard contract, with few modifications, seldom leads to a dispute, but those contracts which salespeople modify often lead to disputes?"
Comparing two contracts side by side is time consuming and expensive—let alone doing that for the thousands typically held by a large corporation. But software is evolving that could analyze, and make sense of, contracts with greater accuracy and at much lower cost, Mr. Grady says.
More Help From Allies
One of the largest defense contractors in the world, BAE Systems BA.LN +0.55% PLC invests heavily in protecting itself from cyberattacks. But it says better data from its suppliers could help improve its defenses.
The London-based company says if its suppliers get cyberattacked, its own hardware and software could be compromised. But "those suppliers are smaller businesses with lesser investments in their security," says Peder Jungck, vice president and chief technology officer of BAE's Intelligence & Security sector.
A lack of trust among suppliers, even those that aren't direct competitors, means only a small percentage of them disclose the data showing the cyberattacks on their systems, he says. Sharing that data, he says, would strengthen the security of every product BAE makes.
Mr. Taves is a writer in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.
