United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Statistical Division

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Statistical Division Initiatives for the industrialisation of statistics and their impact on business registers Steven Vale UNECE steven. vale@unece. org

Contents v v v Streamlining and Industrialisation International initiatives Implications for business registers • v Opportunities and threats Conclusions

Streamlining is: v v v Improving efficiency Reducing costs More timely data Increased flexibility to produce new outputs A challenge faced by all statistical organisations

Industrialisation is: v v v Common processes Common tools Common methodologies Recognising that all statistics are produced in a similar way, rather than each domain being “special” A consequence of streamlining

Many international groups and projects are talking about streamlining and industrialising statistics

Why this great interest? The internet has 1800 exabytes of data in 2011 exa = 10^18

50, 000 exabytes by 2020 27 fold growth in the next 9 years We live in exponential times!

Are these data interesting? v v Probably 99. 9% are videos, photos, audio files, text messages and other nonsense But that still leaves 1, 800, 000, 000 bytes of potentially relevant data

Private sector competitors? v Google: Data labs • Public Data Explorer • Real-time price indices • First point of reference for the “data generation” • v Facebook, store cards, credit agencies, . . . • What if they link their data?

Coordination – HLG-BAS v v v High-Level Group for Strategic Directions in Business Architecture in Statistics UNECE group, created by the Conference of European Statisticians in 2010 Mission: • To oversee and guide discussions on developments in the business architecture of the statistical production process, including methodological and information technology aspects

HLG-BAS Members v v v v v Netherlands - Gosse van der Veen (Chairman) Australia - Brian Pink Italy - Enrico Giovannini Slovenia - Irena Krizman United States - Katherine Wallman Eurostat - Walter Radermacher OECD – Martine Durand UNECE - Lidia Bratanova Observers METIS – Alice Born (Canada) MSIS – Rune Gløersen (Norway) SAB – Marton Vucsan (Netherlands)

HLG-BAS Strategic Vision v Endorsed by the Conference of European Statisticians on 14 June We have to re-invent our products and processes and adapt to a changed world

The Challenges are too big for statistical organisations to tackle on their own. We need to work together

Other international initiatives v “Industry” standards Generic Statistical Business Process Model • Generic Statistical Information Model • Statistical Data and Metadata e. Xchange • Data Documentation Initiative •

Other international initiatives v New collaborative networks “Statistical Network” • Sharing Advisory Board • ESSNet projects • SDMX / DDI Dialogue •

What does this mean in practice? v Collaboration v Coordination v Communication

Changing the focus v From local to corporate optimum Standard processes within an organisation • Not always the best choice for individual statistical domains, but more efficient at the level of the organisation • Requires strategic decisions and clear management commitment • v From corporate to global optimum?

Changing roles for NSOs? v v v Data integration Quality assurance More focus on analysis and interpretation Partnerships for dissemination Changing staff and cost profiles Changing organisational culture

Opportunities and threats for statistical business registers v v v Reduced role of surveys and sampling frames Greater use of external and mixed data sources BR becomes “gateway” for business data v v v More satellite registers? More sophisticated matching techniques needed More integration between statistical registers Register or business statistics database? Source of new statistics

Questions? steven. vale@unece. org www 1. unece. org/stat/platform/display/hlgba s