Actionable, decision-augmenting data can be obtained internally or externally. Of course, external data is a far richer and more diverse source, as it comprises every other piece of digital information outside of the four walls of an enterprise. 
"External search" is a term used at Emerj to reference searching for and extracting data-driven insights from outside sources. That this external data is often both abundant and free of charge is appealing, but there are challenges. The main difficulty lies in building an infrastructure and workforce capable of "scraping," cleaning and converting raw ...