Supply on infobrokering services market in Poland in view of empirical studies

The revolution in information and communication technologies (ICT) has implied the emergence of new information services, namely information brokerage services, which provide commercial acquisition, aggregation, and accreditation of information. The reflections on the topic of this paper are firstly focused on the infobrokering services provision. Furthermore, the results of primary research concerning supply on infobrokering services market in Poland are shown. Subsequently, the comparison of the primary and secondary research is conducted, so that the instability of the supply is confirmed. Współczesne Problemy Ekonomiczne nr 2/2018 (17) 30 Podaż na rynku usług infobrokerskich w Polsce w świetle badań empirycznych Rewolucja w zakresie technologii informacyjno-komunikacyjnych (ICT) implikuje powstawanie nowych usług informacyjnych, mianowicie usług infobrokerskich, które są usługami świadczonymi na zasadzie outsourcingu i polegają na akwizycji, agregacji i akredytacji informacji. W pierwszej części artykułu zarysowano istotę usług infobrokerskich. Następnie przedstawiono wyniki badań własnych w zakresie podaży na rynku usług infobrokerskich w Polsce. W ostatniej części publikacji skoncentrowano się na porównaniu wyników badań własnych i badań zastanych. Konkluzją jest empiryczne zweryfikowanie tezy o chwiejności podaży na badanym rynku. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)


Introduction
Currently, the dominant trends combining both acquisition and aggregation of information together with services which are provided in the multimodal e-nvironment have induced the development of infobrokering services. These services are defined as professional and commercial information services, involving mediation between information resources and individual, institutional and business entities in need for data and information (Cisek, 2007a;MPiPS, 2010). Since infobrokering services in Poland are emerging ones, their market is to be recognized and analyzed.
The reflections on the topic of this paper are focused on the number of infobrokering enterprises in Poland. The main thesis of the article is that the supply side of the infobrokering services market in Poland is unsteady. Firstly, the idea of infobrokering services is presented. Secondly, the number of infobrokering enterprises in Poland is established. Furthermore, the comparison of primary research to the secondary research is performed so that the thesis can be empirically confirmed. The paper is elaborated on English and Polish literature studies available both in print and online as well as the primary and secondary research on infobrokering enterprises in Poland conducted between 2014 and 2016.

The Outline of Infobrokering Services
The revolution in the information and communication technologies (ICT) has implied the development of digital and mobile devices together with improved, accelerated and predominantly wireless Internet access, the expansion of interactive communication through social media, the universality of city monitoring, and the Internet of Things. In turn it catalyzes the double upsurge in the size of the digital universe every two years. Therefore, between 2013 and 2020 the amount of prosumed data is to increase tenfold and will reach the level of 44 ZB, which translates to more than 5 TB (5,000 GB) for each person on Earth. According to IDC, the number of devices or objects that can be computerized and connected to the Internet, is approaching 200 billion, and 7% of them (14 billion) are already interacting online. The data generated by these devices currently represents 2% of the world data and the IDC's predictions state that by 2020 the number of network-connected devices will have multiplied to reach the level of 32 billion and will have produced 10% of the world data (IDC, 2014).
Consequently, relevant, aggregated, and verified information is difficult to obtain. Hence, the importance of information brokers 1 , professionals possessing interdisciplinary knowledge together with advanced searching, digital, and analytic skills, increases. The need for the occupation was recognized in the 1990s and was induced by the Internet expansion and diminishing costs of data storage. Vast amount of data has begun to be gathered, collected, analyzed, processed, stored, and transferred while public and private sources of information such as statistical data, census information, government records, social networking sites, and even web browsing histories have become possible to be searched.
The Polish Classification of Occupations and Specializations for Labor Market Needs (Klasyfikacja Zawodów i Specjalności) categorizes an infobrokering profession as 262204 An Information Broker (Researcher) and situates it in the major group 2: Professionals, and the minor group 2622: Library Scientists and Information Managers (MPiPS, 2010, p. 44). In view of Polish legislative framework, infobrokering services can be provided either as freelancing, sole proprietorship or full-time employment in an infobrokering enterprise. However, there are four sine qua non conditions which should be met by a professional infobroker: a) being a mediator between information resources and clients (individual consumers, organizations or enterprises in need of data and information); b) providing commercial services based on the outsourcing principle (fee); c) selling the information service not information as such; d) applying appropriate skills and knowledge and being guided by professional ethics (Cisek, 2007a). The infobroker's responsibilities include: the implementation of advanced searching strategies and data processing in order to acquire information; the evaluation and the verification of the obtained results; the assurance of information efficiency and its relevance in view of consumer's needs; the information aggregation and interpretation; the preparation of a final infobrokering elaboration in form of either a presentation, a report or a database depending on the client's requirements (Bates, 2007;Grala, Kozakiewicz, 2007). Therefore, infobrokers use the professional skills of librarians, private investigators, database searchers, market researchers, competitive intelligence researchers, indexers, analysts, IT specialists, and writers in their work.

The Infobrokering Enterprises on Polish Information Services Market
The exploration of supply on Polish infobrokering services market was carried out between 2014 and 2016. Firstly, a search strategy based on a Big6™ Skills model and its operationalization prepared by Nizioł (2010) was implemented. The numbers of the search results in the relevant information sources correlated with search terms used in each source are presented in Table 1.  Subsequently, the doubling infobrokering entities were excluded so that the total number was narrowed down to 318 enterprises which define their business activity as information brokering. A further evaluation, namely: 1. confirmation of telephone/ address/website data, and 2. examination of business activities according to The Code List of Classification of Business Activities in Poland (Polska Klasyfikacja Działalności, PKD) 2007(MR, 2007, revealed two issues. Firstly, the studied enterprises can be divided into four classes (Table 2), and secondly, out of 318 enterprises investigated only 18 can be classified as identified infobrokering enterprises in the strict sense, for which information brokerage is the only or main business activity (Table 3).

Infobrokering Enterprises in Poland in view of Primary and Secondary Research
The number of infobrokering enterprises in the strict sense obtained in the primary research was compared with the numbers resulting from the existing studies (Figure 1). infobrokering entities listed in five studies was that only 3 infobrokering enterprises were mentioned in each analyzed study, while 95 enterprises were noted only in a single study (Figure 2).
The noticed variability shows the instability of supply on infobrokering services market in Poland. Ununiform research methodologies may be one cause of observed alterations. Additionally, the infobrokering service market is in its initial stage and a lot of infobrokering enterprises are set up by Information Science graduates, who are professionally trained to provide highly specialized infobrokering services in multimodal e-nvironment but lack the basic knowledge of running a business, let alone attract potential customers, or create a competitive advantage. Since the methodology and its operationalization implemented in the primary research was compatible with the Nizioł's study, the further comparison was carried out between these two studies and led to the four following conclusions. Firstly, the number of enterprises defining their business activity as infobrokering increased apparently between 2010 and 2015 (Nizioł: 173 enterprises; Waligórska-Kotfas: 318; increase by 83,82%). However, the number of infobrokering enterprises in the strict sense decreased (Nizioł: 29 enterprises, which was 16,76% of N = 173; Waligórska-Kotfas: 18 enterprises, which was 5,66% of N = 318; decrease by 37,93%) ( Figure 3).
Secondly, the analysis in respect to the location of identified enterprises (N = 18) revealed a leading voivodship -Małopolskie. 6 enterprises (33,33% of N = 18) are located there (Figure 4). A similar location pattern was recognized in Nizioł's study. In 2010 5 infobrokering enterprises in the strict sense were also located in Małopolskie voivodship. Additionally, there were 5 entities in two other voivodships, namely Śląskie, and Mazowieckie ( Figure 5).   Thirdly, the majority of identified enterprises (N = 18) have been providing infobrokering services for less than ten years ( Figure 6). 9 enterprises were founded between 2006 and 2010, and 5 more in the next five years (50,00% and 27,78% of N = 18 respectively). This is comparable with the Nizioł's study according to which 22 infobrokering enterprises (75,86% of N = 29) were set up between 2006 and 2010.

Conclusion
To sum up, the provision of infobrokering services on Polish information services market is emergent. Although, the primary research shows an increase in the number of enterprises which define their business activity as information brokerage, the thorough analysis of enterprises' contact data together with the verification of their business activity codes reveal that the observed growth is apparent. The vast number of enterprises identifies themselves using the term infobrokering mainly because it is perceived either as a chance to reflect and follow innovative marketing trends or as an instrument to be associated with cutting-edge ICT and multimodal e-nvironment. Simultaneously, infobrokering enterprises enter the market only to leave it shortly since their founders lack the basic business skills. Therefore, the instability of the supply side of the infobrokering services market in Poland is empirically confirmed.
However, the comparison of the primary research (N = 18) with the Nizioł's study (N = 29) revealed three analogies. The first similarity concerns the geographic location of infobrokering enterprises within the administrative division in Poland and indicates their accumulation in the south of Poland. The second parallel is found in the fact that infobrokering enterprises are mainly established after 2005. The third resemblance refers to the structure of infobrokering enterprises regarding sex of the owner and leads to the conclusion that males more often than females establish and run infobrokering businesses.

Abstract
The revolution in information and communication technologies (ICT) has implied the emergence of new information services, namely information brokerage services, which provide commercial acquisition, aggregation, and accreditation of information. The reflections on the topic of this paper are firstly focused on the infobrokering services provision. Furthermore, the results of primary research concerning supply on infobrokering services market in Poland are shown. Subsequently, the comparison of the primary and secondary research is conducted, so that the instability of the supply is confirmed.