4 Ways That Data Is The New Utility (Yes, Really)

Credit: Ángelo González (cc:by)

Data services are like water or electricity. Work with me on this.

By Matt Watts

I know it sounds strange to many in the IT world, but your customers are starting to think of your service as a utility.

Yes, that kind of utility: gas, water, electricity. Something they turn on with the press of a button or the flick of a switch. They don’t particularly care where it comes from, so long as it’s on when they want it, and delivered without glitches at an affordable price.

This type of thinking—whether or not you share the thought—will affect the way you build and develop your data transmission infrastructure.

Consider The Similarities For example: Natural gas is stored in large quantities and delivered over pipes. In and of itself, it has no inherent value. Its value only comes into play when gas reaches the endpoint, where it’s converted into something useful—heating your home or cooking your food.

Now look at data: It consists of a string of ones and zeroes with no inherent value. They’re stored, then delivered over wires, fibers and airwaves. Like gas, it’s only at the user’s endpoint that they’re converted into something useful—in this case, email, documents, or the latest viral cat vid… err, I mean, the latest sales spreadsheet.

My point is, consumers now treat data as a utility, which means they take the end result for granted. They expect email to arrive on their phone when they turn it on, and they don’t really care what happens behind the scenes.

For those of us in the IT business, it means we need to start competing less on shiny features and more on utility aspects like cost and service. Though we may think of ourselves as innovators, we ought to take cues from the relatively staid utility industry—because that’s the direction our business is heading.

In many ways, utilities are more forward-thinking and dynamic than you might realize. Here are four business areas where utilities shine—and IT would do well to emulate them:

1. Scale And Cost 
As individual consumers, we always look at the expense of having utilities delivered to us. As a society, we continue to increase our use of these services, and the economies of scale reduce costs.

Our use of data is growing even fater than our use of utilities, so it’s absolutely critical for IT to figure out how to control the costs associated with it. That means re-thinking our storage infrastructures, to become more efficient.

We should be thinking about how we can tap into the sort of hyperscale computing environment used by giant companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook. They have millions of virtual servers to handle increased demand without requiring more space or power.

Prices of cloud services are falling fast, as competition and scale exert their unstoppable influences.

2. Availability 
For utilities, customers expect service 24/7, with no downtime for updates or system improvements.

Soon they’ll expect the same for data—whether they access it through a PC, a smartphone, a tablet, or (increasingly) a thermostat or other Internet-of-Things device. This is pushing IT companies to consider new ways of building infrastructures.

3. Service 
In the past, when problems such as storms, accidents or contamination occurred, people put up with blackouts and periodic interruptions to their gas or water supplies.

Today, these problems occur less frequently. And when they do, customers expect them to be fixed quickly, and to be updated without having to contact the company responsible for the service.

If they do call, they expect a customer service rep, without holding. They also want to be assured that the company has the people and the scale to resolve such issues in the future.

Can IT provide an equivalent service level? When was the last time you called the IT help desk?

The quality of service can be difficult to measure—often, customers pay no attention to it until something goes wrong. But they expect swift results, especially where money is concerned. For IT, if your response is like, “Our service is pretty good—we get few customer complaints,” then that no longer cuts it in today’s environment.

Instead, think of your company as providing an essential service such as water or heat—because that’s how your customers are coming to view it.

4. Finding New Business Opportunities 
In addition to providing constant availability and service at a reasonable cost, utility companies are at the forefront of exploring new ways of generating revenue and profit.

That’s essential when the product you deliver is a commodity. You must find new ways to position your value, or your competitors will siphon off your business.

The Bottom Line Of course, data isn’t like a utility in every way—transmitting it involves security considerations, or it may entail intellectual property rights.

But in customers’ eyes, data is becoming just as essential a part of daily life as fuel or water: They expect it to be delivered with just as much consistency, reasonable pricing, and reliable service.

If your company isn’t doing that, you’re riding in a horse and carriage while your competitor is designing the next Aston Martin
.