Defense of the thesis of Maider Elorza Iturbe
Defense of the thesis of Maider Elorza Iturbe
Defense of the thesis of Maider Elorza Iturbe
Título de la tesis: Customer Data Monetisation: An In-Depth Analysis of Strategies, Economic Viability, and Implementation in the Retail Industry. A Case Study in EROSKI. Obtuvo la calificación SOBRESALIENTE CUM LAUDE
On July 16, the doctoral student Maider Elorza Itrube made the reading of the Doctoral Thesis entitled: Customer Data Monetisation: An In-Depth Analysis of Strategies, Economic Viability, and Implementation in the Retail Industry. A Case Study in EROSKI.
Director: Dr. Eduardo Castellano Fernández (MIK – Mondragon Unibertsitatea-Business Faculty) and Dra. Sara Segura Querol (Mondragon Unibertsitatea-Business Faculty).
Summary of the thesis:
The growing trend towards digitalisation, driven by the emergence of new technologies and factors like the increase in user connectivity and mobility, has significantly expanded data availability. Nowadays, organisations see data as a strategic asset. And they seek viable strategies to generate profits, leading to data monetisation becoming an increasingly common practice. This can be seen very clearly with food retailers who, because of their customer-centric focus, collect a significant volume of heterogeneous data about their customers.
In that context, the scientific literature has mainly prioritised theoretical and descriptive studies in data monetisation, with a notable lack of empirical studies, especially for the retail sector and regarding customer data.
Therefore, this thesis examines the phenomenon in a detailed way using an empirical study carried out at EROSKI, one of the main consumer goods and services distribution companies in Spain. The study was fundamental for carrying out the three empirical research studies that form the basis for the thesis, in which diverse techniques for evidence gathering and data analysis were used.
An exhaustive bibliographic and empirical review was done in the first research study. A conceptual framework is presented in the review where diverse strategies a retail organisation can use to monetise customer data directly or indirectly are described. The study was completed by finding a new indirect strategy that had not been previously classified as such in the literature. Furthermore, it tackles the reasons behind the implementation of those strategies and examines how economic structures associated with the strategies are designed.
In the second research study, a contribution was made to the scientific literature by presenting the process a company could follow to effectively carry out an economic analysis of the viability of their customer data monetisation strategies, which can be either direct or indirect. In addition, a ranking was designed using a method that makes it possible to choose the most viable strategy.
Lastly, in the third research study, in light of the scarcity of publications in the literatura that cover integral projects related to data monetisation strategies, one of the most viable strategies was developed at EROSKI. The process spanned from conception to implementation, following the corresponding life cycle of the data in a structured way, and it concluded with the evaluation of the economic benefits obtained.
Ultimately, the three research studies make an empirical contribution to the scientific literature, which in turn makes this thesis a valuable reference for organisations in the retail or similar sectors for monetising their customer data.