Monetization is only one form of creating value

I read that statement today and felt compelled to write.

It's correct. 100% correct.

It's hugely important in retail yet rarely acknowledged, let alone stated explicitly. So it's important to me that I repeat it and amplify it:

... monetization is only one form of creating value.

Who said it?

It comes at the end of the first paragraph, of the first answer, to the first question in this interview... with Mark Hardy, Head of Walmart Data Ventures.

Yes; the head of the data arm of the world's largest retailer is stating explicitly that there are multiple ways to create value from retail data and monetization is only one of them.

Walmart Data Ventures creates value when merchants and suppliers use its Luminate data insight product suite. Luminate provides three modules: Shopper Behavior, Channel Performance and Customer Perception.

Shopper Behavior and Customer Perception are paid-for, monetized modules

This makes perfect sense; Walmart suppliers that choose to pay for these services gain valuable insight into how shoppers behave (described by Hardy as the "What?") and why they do so (the "Why?").

Walmart recognises that the data and analytics that it can provide on shopper and consumer behaviours enable suppliers to understand shopper and consumer behaviours, with greater detail and subtlety than ever before, so it monetizes this data directly. Suppliers gain unique insights into shoppers and consumers when they analyse, interpret and act upon the incredible dataset that Walmart collects, analyses and provides back to them.

Hardy makes the point that "... consumers want personalization at the same time that they want privacy, and the only solution to that is first-party data." Here, 'first-party data' means detailed, anonymised data - direct from the retailer - which describes the choices of individual shoppers rather than highly aggregated samples.

Walmart provides Channel Performance insights for free

Walmart's attitude to 'supplied item' data is a very different story. Here, value is created from hundreds of collaborative actions that improve supply chain efficiency at thousands of points every day.

It is in every retailer's interest to share 'supplied item' data so that every supplier can "... actually understand their inventory and sales...". Walmart recognises that it needs to "... provide that for free" to reduce barriers for collaborative activity with its entire supplier base. It has done for a great many years through RetailLink DSS and it is continuing to do so as it migrates suppliers from RetailLink to Luminate.

In the article, Channel Performance is described as the module with Walmart's "store supply chain data" which "... allows [suppliers] to actually understand their inventory and sales... provide[d]... for free". This means that Walmart can collaborate with every supplier to start :

... really understanding where we are in our journey of products from source to shelf. And that allows us to understand what’s being bought, what are the conditions of the store, what’s the assortment, what’s out of stock, what are the “no-picks” for online orders coming from our stores. That gives us the “where.”

To generate that understanding, Walmart collaborates with its suppliers - through freely-supplied data - to "... create visibility into the journey of a product". This shared insight allows retailer and supplier to drive inefficiency from the supply chain; increasing availability, reducing waste and meeting shopper demand by ensuring that the right products are in the right place at the right time.

Let's say it again; monetization is only one form of creating value.

With most retailers around the world "... looking for alternative revenue streams, whether it’s advertising, data or other streams... " it's important to remember that not every data point needs to be monetized to create value for the retailer; a maxim that we would all do well to remember.