The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a variety of interesting trends, some of which have created both opportunities and challenges for many organizations globally. Alternative data sources have proven to offer hugely impactful and timely insights for companies wanting to understand the impact of Covid-19 on verticals such as eCommerce (consumer transaction data, social media, etc.), travel, and hospitality (mobility data, geolocation, etc.), among many others. However, two years on, and as we enter the holiday season, organizations are relying on alternative data sources to understand how the global supply chain will be affected this year. This paper outlines the importance of alternative data sources in the understanding of global supply chains, considering some of the more unique and unstructured datasets that are available to global teams.

As of 2021, China’s population exceeds 1.4 billion people according to United Nations data, which excludes Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. This number makes up approximately one-fifth of the global population, and with the rapid rise in technology in recent years, it can be concluded that they are also one of the largest producers of data. Historically, there were 4 factors of production known to create economic wealth – land, capital, labour and entrepreneurship, but with an increasing global reliance on technology, data (knowledge) is now considered by many to be the fifth factor. Unlike the initial four factors of production, the pricing models for data are opaque with no ownership models truly in place, and ill definitions surrounding sensitivity and the categorization of data. According to many global experts and firms watching the developments with avid interest, China’s crackdown on Big Tech is seen to safeguard one of the world’s most valuable economic resources and is considered to be the new oil. This paper will provide insight into China’s changing data landscape regarding regulations, always linking back to the connection between alternative data availability, collection, and distribution. The content included in this paper has been collected through both publicly available sources as well as through interviews with data experts and proprietary client-only content available through Eagle Alpha’s Data Strategy solution.