“Selling Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) involves obtaining information, often for free, and slicing it into easy-to consume pieces for clients who can pay top dollar”
One of the newer members of BIIA is IRON Solutions. It is the largest online marketplace and most trusted source for finding new and used agricultural, industrial and outdoor power equipment. IRON Solutions links up buyers and sellers, equipment dealers and their bankers, and therefore knows a great deal more about the value of new and used equipment than anybody else. This digital market place combines all the core elements of an intelligent trading system: sourcing, valuation and access to finance.
From print to digital: IRON Solutions had its genesis in an annually issued guide, akin to the used-car Blue Book which dates back to the ’40s; dealers would ‘dog-ear’ the guide to help them to price a used equipment a farmer was offering on a trade. Some of the guide’s information was available online by 1999, but Iron Solutions hadn’t made the digital leap of making it easy to use.
Enter Darwin Melnyk, CEO of IRON Solutions who converted the old tractor data into a sophisticated database. If one wants the autumn-harvest price on a tricked-out 2003 Flail chopper? No problem, a $400-a-year subscription to IronSolutions.com provides the answer. Farmers can search internationally for their machines, dealers can learn which farmers are interested in upgrading, and both can get much more specific equipment information that helps them make money-saving decisions.
Source: IRON Solutions and “The Business Of Data” – Smart Money Aug. 2009
