Jürgen Pannek

Most data product initiatives do not fail on the platform. They fail quietly on a question 

nobody settles at the start: who may use which data, for what purpose, and on what 

contractual basis. In a federated distribution network of around 1,200 independent 

distributors and more than 3,000 suppliers — none of whom can be instructed — that 

question has to be answered before anything can be sold. Jürgen Pannek shares how 

a proprietary product classification was developed into a commercial data product 

whose revenue and earnings more than doubled, built on a federated architecture with 

an explicit chain of rights between data providers and data recipients. The focus is on 

what made it sellable: ownership that holds up legally, a value exchange suppliers and 

distributors were willing to pay for, and governance measured in margin rather than in 

completeness scores.

• Defining data ownership and usage rights that make monetisation possible in the first 

 place

• Designing data products suppliers and distributors will actually pay for — and 

 recognising early the ones they never will

• Building governance and platforms that lift margins, not just data quality