A new deal for data in the metaverse: how to create value for all
By Joe Abi Akl, Chief Corporate Development Officer, Majid Al Futtaim and Guillaume Thfoin, Head of Business Analytics & Intelligence, Majid Al Futtaim
When the mixed reality metaverse materialises, it won’t just be a $1 trillion growth opportunity.
The metaverse looks set to redefine the customer experience (CX), as avatars blur the boundaries between physical and virtual life. An upcoming generation of ‘virtual natives’ will take over from today’s digital ones, spurring new waves of innovation for businesses.
Less dominant in the headlines, but no less significant, is the accompanying ‘dataverse’ – the personal universe of unique data that each person will carry around with them to make their virtual world function.
Both innovations have the potential to enrich lives, but only if data is safeguarded, and all stakeholders gain from it.
As governments, global technology companies and organisations everywhere consider how to build responsible data ecosystems, how can retail-experience businesses like ours ensure the metaverse will work for everyone?
One thing is clear, no organisation should act alone.
A new paradigm
While the world grapples for a consistent definition of the metaverse, this new blended physical and virtual world will continue to be propelled by, and generate, truly vast amounts of data.
Data is already expanding at a compound annual growth rate of more than 25%, according to industry analysts IDC.
Every day, we witness huge quantities being created in our own businesses, from loyalty programmes to shopping malls. And the new datasets created by the metaverse will pose fresh challenges – like who owns it, and who should have access to it?
At Majid al Futtaim, we believe our customers are the ultimate owners of their data, across all platforms. Companies are the temporary and limited custodians of it.
Strengthening data regulations, protection and governance has been a major priority for governments and businesses for some time. In January 2022, the UAE launched a new Personal Data Protection Law, which prohibits the processing of personal data without consent.
We have been aligned with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules for the last five years, ensuring customer consent before collecting and processing data.
However, to leverage the full benefits of the metaverse and secure the information that enables it in the first place, businesses must go beyond compliance and consider a ‘new deal’ for data.
The value exchange
We know that our customers are protective of their personal information and want to stay in control of it. Therefore, it is our duty as a business they put their trust in, to safeguard their data.
Yet, more than eight in 10 people around the world say they would be willing to share personal information in exchange for more personalised services.
Similarly, a US study has shown people feel more loyalty to brands that use their data for personalisation, giving them a quid pro quo for opening up their data vault.
We believe now is the right moment to move beyond current public-private-partnership models which exclude the individual. The time has come for a ‘new deal’ – what we call a Public-Private-People-Partnership (PPPP), where citizens become stakeholders in the value exchange.
One example of this is our work with Digital Dubai (formerly Smart Dubai) and its members, to enable innovative digital services for citizens by tying government and business data together.
We have also combined our own and partner data to create a dashboard that improves strategic decision making in retailing – ultimately for our customers’ benefit.
Data collaboration dividends
Research from McKinsey has confirmed that companies will not get the full view of the trends impacting them unless they join their own with external data.
And, from a customer point of view, nothing is more annoying than being constantly asked for the same information by different organisations. Simultaneously, consumers often struggle to compare offers across multiple platforms.
Steps are being taken in the retail industry to break down these silos.
For example, grocery shopping data is now used to improve decision-making in the consumer lending market. Similarly, we have combined our Point of Sale and customer data with that of financial institutions to gain a deeper understanding of the economic trends shaping the UAE.
Looking ahead, the dataverse could allow businesses to fill in even more gaps, by enabling the creation of Digital Twins. These are complex virtual models that create a counterpart of something – a factory, a car, a building – in the digital world.
They are already commonly used in engineering and manufacturing, and the concept can also be applied to people having their own, digital ‘twins’.
These online avatars will be able to hold consumer data and evolve in the metaverse, interacting with virtual, AI driven customer-service agents.
But the full value of such technology will only be realised if these ‘twins’ are interoperable between platforms. Users will also want to control what data they wish to share with digital service providers, and what they receive in return.
In other words, helping the public to realise value from their data depends on partnerships.
Creating value for all
The metaverse will deliver a more personalised, seamless CX, giving brands new tools to deliver more consistent experiences across all channels and offer customers greater convenience in their purchasing.
We expect this to lead to a more intuitive, empathetic kind of CX than current e-commerce models allow.
To achieve these goals, Majid Al Futtaim will launch a beta version of a new data ecosystem in 2022. This will enable companies to collaborate in an environment that preserves privacy and, more importantly, offers customers a fair value exchange for sharing more data.
It builds on our belief that, with the metaverse taking shape, now is the time to experiment: pushing the boundaries of personalisation, combining data to solve problems, and making data protection more robust.
Collaboration with customers and partners is critical in this context, allowing us to explore the full benefits of PPPPs to create long-term value for all.
If data is shared openly and protected wisely these new tools could also give businesses the ability to realise their true value – delivering a ‘new deal’ for data and for people.
