Transparency Strategies in the Age of Information

Pepperdine Professor Nelson Granados, in his paper "Transparency Strategy: Competing with Information in a Digital World" (2013), says that in the business world saturated with data and information, firms are presented with the question of what to do with the data and how to use it competitively.

He and his co-author, Alok Gupta of Univ. Minnesota, cite a need for a transparency strategy, defined as one to "strategically and selectively disclose information" in order to further a competitive advantage. Then they discuss the four potential strategic options: disclose, distort, bias, or conceal (638).

Progressive Insurance falls into the "disclose" strategy because they have built a site based on disclosing all data to inform their client's decision. They are very transparent and use it to their advantage. What's more is they disclose the prices of the competition so they can show the client that they offer the best value for their services. 

This is the new vulnerability to firms in the age of information, for even if your ad campaigns seek to hide your data, other firms may access it and use it against you. The best defense is a good offense, namely a transparency strategy, which Progressive has used to earn much market share.

Domino's Pizza is another example of a firm that harnessed its information and disclosed it as part of a transparency strategy.For example, the advent of the pizza tracker, which tracks the status of your pizza in real time, enhanced customer experience, engagement, and loyalty.

It is not hard to imagine examples of the other strategies, and it is particularly evident in the realm of advertising.

In the Age of Information, a modern business must have a transparency strategy.