Abstract:
A computer network is used to improve the profitability of one or more business entities. The network receives business-related data from at least two business entities and stores at least some of the data from each of the business entities in a common database. Then, in accordance with the terms of an agreement among the business entities, the network allows at least one of the business entities to receive information gathered from the common database.

Description:
BACKGROUND 
     Many business entities, such as product retailers and financial institutions, collect and maintain large amounts of business information. The types of information that business entities routinely collect include data describing the products and services offered by the business entities, data describing the amounts and types of transactions involving those products and services, and data describing the customers who engage in those transactions. 
     These business entities often use very large parallel database systems, such as NCR Corporation&#39;s Teradata Active Data Warehouse system, to collect and maintain this raw data. More importantly, the business entities use data warehousing systems to analyze the raw data, retrieving and organizing the data in a manner that leads to a more complete and useful understanding of the business conducted by these entities. In many cases, data warehouses are used specifically to improve the quality and profitability of product or service delivery to customers. For example, the data stored in a data warehouse, when retrieved and organized in a certain manner, allows the owner of that data to profile and classify its customers and then study purchasing habits within those classes. Profiling in this manner allows the business entity to make more intelligent decisions in building and pricing its product supply. 
     In general, the data stored in a data warehousing system is limited to that which the owner of the system can collect through its normal business channels. Some business entities augment their data warehouses with purchased data or data obtained from other sources, e.g., through questionnaires or forms completed by customers on the promise of some benefit received in return. This type of data, however, still limits an entity&#39;s understanding of its own business or the preferences of its own customers. 
     SUMMARY 
     Described below is a system that enables business entities who share a common business interest, such as a common set of customers, products, or channels, to pool data collected during the course of business and analyze the pooled data. Pooling data in this manner gives each of the business entities a more complete understanding of its business than it would otherwise be able to achieve in analyzing only its own business data. Using an independent third-party broker to tightly control access to the pooled data ensures that each of the participating business entities can access only that data to which it is entitled under the data-sharing agreement. 
     One technique described below is useful in improving the profitability of one or more business entities. A computer system receives business-related data from at least two business entities and stores at least some of the data from each of the business entities in a common database. Then, in accordance with the terms of an agreement among the business entities, the computer system allows at least one of the business entities to receive information gathered from the common database. 
     Another technique is useful in operating a consortium among a number of distinct business to entities. The party responsible for managing the consortium collects business-related data gathered by the business entities. At some point, the business entities enter into an agreement for pooling the collected data in a shared data warehouse, and the managing party extracts information from the pooled data in accordance with the terms of this agreement. The managing party then delivers at least some of the extracted information to each of the business entities in the consortium. 
     The consortia described below are implemented, at least in some instances, in computer networks. The typical network includes one or more channels for use in receiving business-related data from at least two business entities and a shared database in which at least some of the business-related data is stored. The shared database includes a mechanism for use in granting a database access only in accordance with the terms of an agreement among the business entities. The computer network also includes a computer system that gathers information from the shared database when instructed to do so by a party having access to the database and then delivers the information to at least one of the business entities. 
     Other features and advantages will become apparent from the description and claims that follow. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of a network through which businesses pool business-related data in a shared data warehouse. 
         FIG. 2  is a flowchart of a technique for use in pooling and analyzing business-related data in a shared data warehouse. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       FIG. 1  shows a network  100  through which multiple business entities  105 ,  110 ,  115 ,  120  share business-related data in a shared data warehouse  125 . The business entities may elect to share virtually any type of data, including consumer data that describes the consumers who purchase goods or services from the businesses; product data that describes the products or services delivered by the businesses; and operations data that describes the business operations carried out by the business entities. 
     In general, the participating businesses are separate legal entities, such as corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships, which have united under a negotiated agreement to form a data-sharing group, or consortium. Consortium members are usually unrelated businesses that share a common interest in some aspect of the business they conduct. For example, the businesses might share a common set of customers or participate at various stages of delivery of a common product or service. In many cases, the consortium includes the manufacturer of a product, a retailer of that product, and a shipper who delivers the product from one to the other. In some cases, the consortium includes businesses that are related entities, such as a parent corporation and its wholly- or partially-owned subsidiaries. The business entities that form the consortium usually are not direct competitors in the business areas for which they are willing to share data, but they typically harbor enough distrust that they are not willing to provide the other consortium members with direct or unrestricted access to their business data. 
     To ensure that each consortium member&#39;s access to the shared data is properly restricted and monitored, the participating businesses  105 ,  110 ,  115 ,  120  typically deliver the data to an independent, third-party service provider, or broker  130 . The broker  130  maintains and often owns the data warehouse  125  into which the shared data is pooled. Access to the shared data warehouse  125  is governed by the terms of an agreement negotiated among the consortium members. The agreement might be negotiated by the consortium members themselves, or the broker  130  might lead the negotiation. 
     Some agreements grant direct access to the pooled data only the broker  130 . Other agreements grant some level of restricted access to the consortium members. For example, the agreement might allow members to submit queries of only a certain type or of certain scope, or it might allow queries against only a portion of the data in the warehouse. In most situations, none of the consortium members is granted full, unrestricted access to the shared data. Conventional network security and privacy techniques, such as password protection, secure servers, and permissions, are used to restrict access to the shared data warehouse  125 . 
     As described below, the broker  130  and/or the consortium members perform queries against the shared data, typically using a database-query tool that is based on a common database-query protocol, such as the Structured Query Language (SQL). Query results are delivered to the consortium members in accordance with the negotiated agreement. 
     The data stored in the shared data warehouse  125  is derived from a variety of sources, such as point-of-sale terminals  135 , inventory-tracking terminals  140 , and other data-collection systems connected to computer networks  145 ,  150 ,  155 ,  160  maintained by the consortium members. Many consortium members, such as members C and D in the example of  FIG. 1 , maintain their own data warehouses  165 ,  170  to store and analyze the data collected from these sources. Other consortium members, such as members A and B in this example, deliver data directly to the broker&#39;s computer network  175  without storing it locally in a data warehouse. In many cases, the broker  130  maintains separate data warehouses  180 ,  185  for some of the consortium members (e.g., members A and B in  FIG. 1 ) and provides data warehousing services to these members under outsourcing agreements. In these situations, the broker  130  transfers data from the outsourced data warehouses  180 ,  185  to the shared data warehouse  125  in accordance with the terms of the data-sharing agreement. Likewise, the terms of the data-sharing agreement govern the transfer of data from the private data warehouses  165 ,  170  of other consortium members (e.g., members C and D in  FIG. 1 ) into the shared data warehouse  125 . 
     In general, there is no minimum or maximum limit on the amount of data stored in the shared data warehouse  125 . Some consortia pool relatively small amounts of data, e.g., on the order of tens or hundreds of gigabytes. Many shared data warehouses, however, are very large, often exceeding tens or even thousands of terabytes (TB), especially when the consortium members are large national or international companies with many product or service offerings in many geographic locations. Shared data warehouses, like private data warehouses, also tend to grow rapidly. Therefore, a highly scalable data warehousing system that is capable of managing large amounts of data (e.g., hundreds or even thousands of terabytes) is best suited for use in a data-sharing consortium. The Teradata Active Data Warehouse system offered by NCR Corporation is one example of such a data warehousing system. 
     In general, the shared data warehouse  125  includes one or more computing systems  190  in the broker&#39;s network  175  that maintain the shared data in a storage facility  195 , such as an array of magnetic or optical disks. Functions performed by the computing systems  190  include placing data into the shared warehouse, removing data from the warehouse, analyzing the pooled data, generating reports, and delivering the reports to the consortium members. The computing systems  190  also restrict access to the pooled data, applying a set of rules grant access only in a manner that is consistent with the terms of the negotiated agreement. 
     The computing systems  190  operate under the control of one or more computer programs  199 , each consisting of computer-readable instructions stored on a persistent storage medium, such as a CD-ROM or a hard disk. In executing one of the programs, a computing system copies the instructions from the persistent storage medium into a temporary storage module, such as a random access memory (RAM) chip, and then executes the instructions from there. 
       FIG. 2  shows a technique for creating and using a shared data warehouse. Either the third-party broker or a prospective consortium member builds the consortium by approaching other prospective members and negotiating a data-sharing agreement among them (step  200 ). Once the consortium has been established, the members collect data about certain aspects of their businesses, such as the types, quantities, and prices of items sold in various geographic locations step  205 ). The members periodically deliver this data to the third-party broker, in accordance with the terms of the data-sharing agreement (step  210 ). The broker pools this data into the shared data warehouse (step  215 ). In general, the broker governs access to the data in the shared data warehouse. 
     When instructed by the consortium members, or at times previously agreed upon by the consortium members, the broker analyzes the pooled data in accordance with the terms of the data-sharing agreement (step  220 ). Analyzing the data usually involves performing a series of queries (e.g., SQL-based queries) against the shared data. The broker tailors the analysis, as well as the analysis results, to the requests of the individual consortium members (step  225 ). For example, one member might request information about the types of customers that purchase certain products (“customer profiling”), while another member might request information indicating whether any nexus exists between purchases of different types of products (“shopping cart analysis”). The broker then delivers the analysis results to the consortium members (step  230 ). In general, the consortium members store the analysis results locally, such as in data warehouses maintained by the individual consortium members (step  235 ). 
     In some embodiments, the broker delivers the analysis results to the consortium members in the form of reports. These reports are often generated from templates created by the broker in conjunction with the consortium members. Using report templates ensures that the consortium members all know in advance what type of information they can receive and in what form they will receive that information. 
     Sharing data in the manner described here provides many advantages to members of the data-sharing consortium, as well as to consumers. Members of a data-sharing consortium have access to more sources and types of business-related data than do their competitors. This gives the consortium members enhanced business knowledge and, thus, a competitive advantage over other companies. Sharing data also helps the participating businesses to discover unrecognized business opportunities. For example, a data-sharing arrangement between a manufacturer and a shipping company can help the shipping company increase its load efficiency, thus increasing its profits and reducing the manufacturer&#39;s shipping costs. Consumers benefit from these data-sharing arrangements through improved delivery and lower cost of products and services. 
     Using a third-party broker to maintain the shared data warehouse ensures the security and privacy of the raw data contributed by consortium members. A third-party broker also helps ensure adherence to the terms of the data-sharing agreement and fairness in distributing the costs and benefits of the shared data warehouse. 
     The text above describes the invention in terms of one or more specific embodiments. The invention also appears in a variety of alternative embodiments and thus is not limited to the embodiments described above. For example, in some embodiments, the third party broker maintains more than one shared data warehouse for each data-sharing consortium. The broker also frequently maintains shared data warehouses for more than one data-sharing consortium. In many cases, a particular business entity is a member of multiple consortia. The business entity might, in this situation, authorize the broker to place all or some portion of its data into the shared data warehouses for more than one of the consortia in which the business participates. In some embodiments, one or more of the consortium members, and not an independent third party, maintains the shared data warehouse. Accordingly, embodiments other than those described here are within the scope of the following claims.