Economía

For the sixth consecutive year, ASEDIE (Multisectorial Information Association) has presented a new edition of its report on the infomediary sector. Its objective is to favor the opening of databases and to know the real economic and social value that this sector brings to society. To that end, 662 companies have been analyzed, 26 more than in the 2017 edition. The report analyzes the 2016 data, comparing the result with the previous edition of the report.

Among the novelties of this year, we can find new analyzes and indicators, such as the average turnover per employee or profit and loss analysis, and the monitoring of information requests at Autonomous Communities level. In addition, a specific survey has been conducted to more than 50 infomediary companies, to find out about their vision of the challenges and opportunities of the sector. The report also include success stories that can be used as a guide to optimize the reuse of open data from public organizations.

Some of the main conclusions of the report are:

• Lack of knowledge about what an infomediary is. Despite the fact that 80% of the surveyed companies share that the use and treatment of information affects their business, only 39% considered themselves as being an Infomediary Company. ASEDIE defines infomediary companies as those who “create value-added products and services with data from both the private and public sector, which help in the decision-making”
• The number of companies increased. In 2017, 21 companies ceased their activity, while 47 new companies were incorporated. The main reason for these inactivities is the company’s own commercial extinction, above mergers or defaults
• Three sectors concentrate most of the activity. Whitin infomediary sector, the main subsectors are geographic information (23.0%), market research (22.5%) and economic and financial activities (20.8%).
• Madrid and Catalonia, the favorite locations. The sector is represented in all the Autonomous Communities, except for the Autonomous Cities of Ceuta and Melilla. As happened last year, most of the infomediary companies are concentrated in the community of Madrid (36%) and Cataluña (18%), followed by other communities, such as por Andalucía (8%), Galicia (7%) and the community of Valenciana (7%).
• Turnover increases by almost 2%. According to the annual accounts available in the Mercantile Registry, the sector turn over close to 1,720 million euros in 2016. This figure represents an increase of 1.9%, comparing with the previous year and an average turnover of 2.9 million of euros (although the median is 194,698 euros, due to 15 companies concentrate close to 50% of turnover).
• The number of employees working in infomediary companies remains stable. In 2016, the infomediary companies employed 19,347 personnel, a figure similar to 2015 (19,362). In addition, the average turnover per employee reached 88,822 euros.
• Subscribed capital decreases. At the end of 2017, the subscribed capital, that is, the shares acquired by the shareholders, was 274 million euros, compared to 366 million euros in 2016, which represents a reduction of -25% per year, for the second consecutive year. 83% of the capital is concentrated in 4 subsector: “Market research”, “Geographic Information”, “Economic & Financial” and “Publishing”.
• A sector with benefits. 68% of analyzed companies presented benefits in 2016, which highlights the economic opportunities of information reuse to create value added products and services.
• Big Data and data analysis, the main challenges. Due to the increase in volume and diversity of the data that must be analyzed by infomediary companies, it is not surprising that 55% of the companies surveyed consider Big Data and data analysis as their main challenges.
• Need for greater homogenization in data. The lack of a common database makes users have to go to the different platforms enabled by Autonomous Communities or local authorities. The infomediaries surveyed consider this fact one of the main barriers to the information reuse. In addition, they indicate that they would need more complete, up-to-date and easily accessible information, as well as regulations that will facilitate and encourage reuse.

Although there are still Challenges to be overcome, such as the greater homogenization of the data or the attraction of Big Data talent, the conclusions of the report show us an encouraging future. The majority of respondents (69%) consider that the informadiary sector will have a positive economic growth during the coming years. The increase in the turnover in2016 and the fact that most of the infomediary companies present benefits seem to point in this same direction, positioning the infomediary sector as one of the drivers of the economic growth of our country.

Annually the Multisectorial Information Association (ASEDIE) publishes a report analyzing in detail the national infomediary market. This fifth edition evaluates 636 Spanish companies whose activity is based on the re-use of public and/or private information to develop value-added products for third parties or citizens in general in the following sub-sectors: culture, directory services, economic and financial, publishing, market research, geographic information, meteorological, or tourism. The list has grown this year adding two new sectors: Infomediation technology and technical consulting.

According to the data provided in this last study, as in previous years most of the infomediary companies are located in Madrid (38%) and Catalonia (19%) In addition, the geographic information (24%), market research (23%), and the economic and financial (22%) industries are the most representative areas.

Regarding the total revenues for the year 2015, they increased to €1,705 billion; which means an average turnover of 2.68 million euros per company. An increase in 2015 close to 2% in comparison with the previous year.

In relation to the jobs created, according to the ASEDIE report, the infomediary sector employed 19,362 workers in 2015, a positive variation of 4.3% compared to the previous edition; with the largest growth was recorded in the economic and financial sector, with 219 employees more than in 2014, a similar number to the geographic information industry, with new 215 more employees.

Finally, at the closing of 2016 the total subscribed capital was 366 million euros, 20.7% lower than the previous year, after three consecutive years of growth.

Through this report, ASEDIE provides a detailed view of a growing sector at national level, which, thanks to its horizontal nature, is especially relevant in improving business management and the impact of the opportunities generated, both economically as politically and socially.

The National Observatory of Telecommunications and the Information Society (ONTSI) publishes annually the report on  the infomediary sector characterization which analyzes in detail the activities and influence of industry in the national socioeconomic sphere.

The fourth edition of this report collects data from 535 infomediary companies during 2015, all of them specialized in the development of products and services based on the re-use of public and/or private information. The necessary data for the elaboration of this study was collected through surveys to the different companies of the sector.

In this edition, as a novelty compared to previous years, the characterization study is accompanied by a document which lists eleven successful cases of infomediary companies in Spain. Thanks to both studies, it is possible to have a detailed image of the Spanish infomediary sector which encompasses both the volume of business, the jobs generated at national level, the origin of the re-used information, as well as the barriers and opportunities detected by the companies interviewed.

Regularly, the Ministries of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda and Internal Revenue Service & Public Administrations, through the National Observatory of Telecommunications & the Information Society (ONTSI), publish a report on the characterization of the Spanish infomediary sector. A document that analyses in detail the activities and impact of an industry that, only in 2015, generated a turnover between 600 and 750 million euros.

The fourth edition of this report was recently published, which collects data from 652 infomediary companies in 2015. The report deals with companies specialized in the development of apps, products and added value services based on the re-use of public and private information, data which is obtained through the review of secondary sources, including public data providers and the Trade Registry.

This is a booming industry whose volume of activity has increased 46% and, moreover, according to the information contained in the report, has grown 10% in comparison with 2014.This figure reaches 63% if the tendency is analysed since the date when the report was published for the first time, in the year 2011.

Origin of the re-used information

82% of companies in the infomediary sector re-use public information, coming almost exclusively (96%) from national sources such as the National Statistics Institute, the Official State Bulletin, the National Geographic Institute, the Trade Registry and the State Meteorology Agency, among others. In the case of foreign information, the European Union is the main data provider (69%) along with other international organizations (63%), followed by administrations outside the EU (57%) and universities (23%).

It is important to highlight the role of open data within the sector, as the number of companies re-using information in open format has increased with respect to the previous study, reaching 69% of the total. Nevertheless, 68% of the sector still has to make specific requests because the information they require is not available.

Barriers and opportunities for re-use

The re-use of information, regardless of the source from which it comes, enables the creation of value added products and services, and is a great asset to boost the economy, employment and the progress of the knowledge society, especially in the area of Smart cities and social data. Nevertheless, the ONTSI study identifies as the main obstacle to infomediary activity the lack of homogeneity of information at regional and local level, this being an additional barrier to the following demands:

● Greater proactivity in the management of the information of the Public Administration information, promoting open data by default.

●  Development of ICT tools that facilitate the automation of the processes of access, refinement, treatment, enrichment and analysis of public data.

● Improved availability and quality of public data, promoting open reusable formats, interoperability and ensuring access to information.

● Promotion of public-private collaboration for the development of the infomediary market

As regards the future of the sector, companies refer to a wide range of possibilities linked to the development of products or services focussed on real-time decision-making, based on social network analysis, and data from Smart Cities, and  new tools that allow the automated data management and interpretation. In this sense, the advance in the big data movement and the tools for their exploitation and support will be key elements for the future development of the sector.

This report falls within the scope of actions aimed at encouraging the openness of public sector information and favouring its re-use, one of the most relevant lines of action in recent years of Red.es, implemented through the Aporta Initiative. Thus the 2016 edition of the Report on the Infomediary Sector Characterization provides greater knowledge about the activity of this industry, incorporating new aspects compared with previous documents by performing a systematic analysis of the sector, regardless of the origin of the re-used information, and including a set of good practices of infomediary companies from which recommendations can be made that help other projects in the sector.

On June 1, Madrid will host the fourth edition of Conference on FLOSS (software and free code) and Open Economy. The aim of the Open Expo is bringing together leading companies and institutions, developers, hackers, experts, suppliers and users to learn about technology solutions and trends on open source, open source, open data and innovation.

Since 2012, each of the events has sought to promote the use and development of free and open software to boost the collaborative philosophy and democratize the access to information technologies. For that purpose, there have been several events dedicated to specific topics such as e-commerce, business intelligence, content managers or elearning, among others.

On this occasion, the Open Expo is focused on addressing the latest challenges related to open source and digital transformation. An opportunity to discover how this technology can modernize businesses and help companies on their way to innovation and the digital transformation of their corporate operations.

In this regard, the organisers of the event has launched a call to find speakers who participate in the congress sharing their success stories and experiences in the field of open technologies, showing how open source and free software have helped improve their business activities or presenting their open source projects.

To participate, it is necessary to apply before March 2 through the official page of the event; a jury will analyze the proposals and select the most relevant ideas in the field to be discussed.

In addition, among the activities organized this year, apart from the showroom where the main companies of the industry show their services and products, there will be an investment forum, Open StartUp Connector, where a twelve start-ups will present to potential investors their ICT projects based onpen code/data, or developed through free tools or software.

At the same time, networking activities with experts are also planned to discuss on cybersecurity, big data and IoT solutions and, moreover, the Open Awards Spain 2017 will take place, which awardsthe best solutions developed with open source technology at the national level.

ASEDIE (Multisectoral Information Association) has published its report in which components, market behavior and characteristics of infomediary sector in Spain are analysed. To carry out this study, the entity has identified and analyzed 602 infomediary companies (21 companies less than in the previous edition) -firms that re-use public/private sector information to develop products or services for the whole society- classified into nine segments: culture; directory services; economic and financial; publishing; market studies; geographic information; weather; tourism and others.

Located mostly in the Community of Madrid and Catalonia, 50% of the evaluated companies belong to the market research area, as previous years, followed by financial entities with a 14 per cent and cultural institutions with a 10 per cent. The less representative sector is the meteorological industry, which covers only 1% of the total.

Analyzing the origin of the type of information, 90% of the infomediary companies operate with private information (42% only "private" and 48% "public and private"), and 58% of them use public information (10% only "public" and 48% "public and private").

Total revenues associated with the infomediary companies in 2014 were close to 1,400 million euros compared to 1,000 million in 2013. This figure allows to assign average revenue of 2.27 million euros per company; concentrated in four groups: market research, economic and financial, geographic information and publishing. In addition, the number of employees in this sector during that year exceeded 15,000 workers, decreasing 3.2% from the previous report.

Nevertheless, a sign of the remarkable evolution of national infomediary sector is the 6.6% growth in sales in comparison to the previous year, a positive evolution if we take into account that the turnover for 2013 had dropped 2% in sales.

Moreover, the assessment methodology of this last reports has been slightly modified, adding three new types of analysis: two of them based on the evolution of the companies included in previous reports and the third divides the companies into five sections according to their commercial risk exposure and their probability of default. In this regard, 77% of the infomediary companies are included in the group of low-moderate risk, 19.6% of them are included in the high-maximum level and, finally, 3.5% of the companies are defaulting.

Thanks to the study and its evolutionary analysis of the last four years, ASEDIE report shows us that information is an important and essential resource for socio-economic growth in Spain; allowing the assessment of impact, relevance, qualities and influence of the sector at national level and the comparison  with other geographical areas.