Each month, the MIT SMR Strategy Forum poses a single question to our panel of experts in the fields of business, economics, and management. This month’s question asks our panel whether privacy concerns will limit businesses’ use of consumer data.

Many ethical, lawfully managed businesses have consumer data they aren’t legally authorized to possess, obtained from a surprising source: their customers, who inadvertently share the personal data of family, friends, and colleagues. And in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the enactment of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, peer-dependent privacy is emerging as a critical consideration for businesses.

Sports analytics first proved its case on the field and in the front office, but as the practice spreads into business operations, the industry is addressing adoption challenges found in many sectors. At the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, speakers from teams and leagues discussed how they are using analytics to boost revenue, and how they’re managing transitions in culture and strategy.

Use #MITSMRChat to join MIT SMR on March 1, 2018, at 11 a.m. EST for an interactive Twitter chat on the challenge — and the opportunity — of engaging customers through sophisticated uses of analytics.

With tough new EU regulations on data security coming in 2018, global companies will soon be faced with a choice: Protect consumers’ data and reap the rewards of having access to it, or face the competitive consequences of consumer distrust. But companies caught unprepared for the change may lose the privilege of keeping consumers’ data altogether.

While Big Data allows personalized service, collecting detailed data about real people (rightly) often raises concerns. But can analytics be used to improve security?

The 2017 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium explores how organizations can respond to data security breaches.

Box subscription companies are growing dramatically, using a high level of personalization and artificial intelligence algorithms to keep customers satisfied and eager for more. Their astute use of social media and influence marketing has also contributed to their startling success.

A case study by MIT Sloan Management Review, “A Data-Driven Approach to Customer Relationships,” details how the South African bank Nedbank is using its rich access to a trove of transactional data from credit card use — from the time of transactions and size of purchases to retailer locations, and even specific details like the age, gender, race, marital status, and income bracket of some users — to help merchants make strategic decisions to better serve those customers.

There are many reasons to believe we are on the crest of substantial progress with even the most challenging of last mile deliveries. Innovative models such as smart locker systems, the use of electric vehicles, and on-demand fleet services such as UberRUSH are being explored. The MIT Megacity Lab is helping identify customer-specific insights about how supply chains deliver products to urban customers and finds that autonomous delivery vehicles, while still years from wide-scale implementation, hold game-changing promise.

Greg Jones, vice president of Enterprise Data & Analytics at Equifax, says the credit reporting agency is beginning to incorporate unstructured data from sources such as social media to better round out the individual profiles in its database. “My focus is to create a compelling differentiator between us and the other credit reporting companies by enabling our customers to provide the most efficient, the most predictive, and the most accurate experience for their customers,” he says.

Research from MIT Sloan School of Management’s Center for Information Systems Research says that to prepare for a future of digital disruption, companies need to consider which of four business models to adapt. “Given the amount of turmoil digital disruption is causing, it’s time for companies to evaluate these threats and opportunities and start creating new business options for the future — the more connected future of digital ecosystems,” write Peter Weill and Stephanie L. Woerner, both of CISR. Companies also need to develop new capabilities in two areas: learning more about their customers and becoming “more of an ecosystem.”

How do companies gain value from ethnography — the in-person study of how people actually use a product or service? Wells Fargo Bank commissioned an ethnographic project and found out for itself. The bank was able to determine that customers approach retirement with three styles: they were either Reactors, Poolers or Maximizers. The bank learned, for instance, that the language of customers who were Maximizers would not resonate with Poolers — and so it developed new kinds of messaging for each.

More than half of managers surveyed strongly agree that their organizations need to step up analytics use, according to a 2013 global survey by MIT Sloan Management Review and SAS Institute. In addition, survey data suggests that in companies where analytics has improved the ability to innovate, managers are more likely to share data with partners and suppliers.

How many privacy policy updates does your credit card company send you each year? Companies often “manage privacy” and “keep consumers informed” by drafting their privacy policies as broadly as possible and consider their job done if they change the policy 10 times a year to fit with changing practices. However, managing privacy should not be seen by businesses as a burden. Instead, it can be a valuable way to generate and maintain a good relationship with your customers.

It’s difficult to start a venture that gains traction with paying customers, but it’s even harder to grow beyond certain levels of sales. The original business model must deal with new products or markets. Early leadership behaviors are often no longer viable. Moreover, different customers come with different transaction costs for the seller. This article discusses the importance of customer selection and how intelligent opportunity management can help companies scale their selling initiatives.

Remember geography lessons in school, painstakingly memorizing the longest rivers, cultures of various regions, the state capitals? For most of us, those lessons are in the past. But in the world of big data analytics, geography is making a comeback. The relatively new market of location analytics is expanding the uses of more traditional geographic information system (GIS) technology to include social, geographic, physical and emotional indicators that help organizations better predict trends

In their forthcoming book, Kord Davis and Doug Patterson argue that there isn’t yet an ethical framework or common vocabulary for having productive discussions around the ethical use of big data.

Jack Dorsey’s Square aims to make it easier for offline merchants, “who still account for 94 percent of commerce in the world,” to take credit cards and to capture analytical data about their transactions.

In recent years, researchers have created a number of metrics to explain the connections between customer behavior and growth. But under the harsh reality of the marketplace, these efforts have generated more smoke than heat. Nevertheless, managers continue to search for insight into how customers feel – and how they will behave.