Page 244 - Using MIS

ethics Guide

Cloudy profit?

Alliance Partners (a fictitious name) is a data bro- The following conversation occurred between two of the
ker. You’ll learn about data brokers in Chapter 9, but for partners at the onset of this year’s meeting:
now, just know that such companies acquire and buy con- “Bart, what are we doing here?” Shelly, the partner in
sumer and other data from retailers, other data brokers, charge of sales and marketing, is challenging Bart Johnson,
governmental agencies, and public sources and aggregate Alliance’s managing partner.
it into data profiles of individuals. Alliance specializes in ac- “What do you mean, Shelly? Don’t you like it here?”
quiring and analyzing market, buyer, and seller data for real “I love it here. So does my husband. But I also know
estate agents. Alliance sells an individual profile to quali- we’re paying $15,000 a night to rent this island!” Shelly rubs
fied real estate agents for $100 to $1,500, depending on the sunscreen on her hands as she talks.
amount of data and type of analysis requested. “Well, we don’t have the entire island.” Bart sounds
Alliance is owned by three partners who started the defensive.
business in 1999. They endured tough times during the “No, I guess not,” she says. “They have to let some of the
dot-com collapse at the turn of the century, but crawled staff stay here. We’re the only paying customers . . . the only
out of that hole and were doing well until they encountered nonlocals.
severe revenue shortfalls in the 2008 real estate collapse. “But,” Shelly continues, “that’s not my point. My point
In late 2008, in order to reduce operational costs to sur- is, how can we afford this level of expense? We’ll pay nearly
vive the downturn, Alliance transitioned its data storage $200,000 for this meeting alone. Where are we meeting
and processing from its own Web farm to the cloud. The next? Some five-star resort on the moon?”
elastic flexibility of the cloud
enables Alliance to improve the
speed and quality of its data ser-
vices at a fraction of prior costs.
Furthermore, using the cloud en-
abled it to reduce the in-house
hardware support staff by 65
percent.
The partners meet twice a
year to review their financial per-
formance, evaluate strategy, and
plan for both the next six months
and the longer term. In 2008, in
the midst of their revenue short-
falls, they met in a small suite in
the local Hamilton Inn, ate stale
doughnuts, and drank watery
orange juice. This year, they’ve
rented a facility in the British
Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.
Source: Eunikas/Fotolia

212