Value of Big Data Analytics for Customs Supervision in e-Commerce

Abstract

Big data and analytics have received a lot of attention in e-government
research over the last decade and practitioners and researchers are
looking into the transformative power of this technology to create for
example competitive advantage, and increase transparency. Recent
research points out that while parties are aware of the transformative
power of this technology, understanding the value that this technology
can bring for their specific organizations still remains a challenge.
Data analytics is in particular interesting to support supervision tasks
of governments. Here we take the customs supervision as a typical
example where data analytics is used to support government in its
supervision role. The main question addressed in this paper is: How to understand the value of big data analytics for government supervision?
To address this question this research builds upon a case study where
big data analytics solutions are developed and piloted as part of the
PROFILE EU-funded research project. We adapt and utilize a recently
published integrated model of big data value realization of Günther et
al. [5]
as a conceptual lens to structure the case findings. As a result we
develop a more detailed model for analyzing value of big data
specifically in the context of customs as an example of a specific
domain of government supervision. This research contributes to the
eGovernment literature on articulating value from big data analytics,
particularly focusing on the role of government supervision.