Can data analytics inform new business model development?

Information technology has enabled the upheaval of longstanding business models, whether in the globalization of product supply chains, the outsourcing of manufacturing, delivery and support processes or the use of efficient, just-in-time manufacturing. While the changes have many benefits, they have also served to make the product development process more complicated, with one notable exception: the supply chain simplification from disintermediation. Disintermediation, namely the elimination of middlemen, took off with online commerce, but the notion of more directly connecting customers and suppliers has started to seep into almost every business sector. While disintermediation has historically involved streamlining a linear supply chain, the next stage in business evolution entails creating bidirectional connections between various stakeholders in the product development, delivery and purchase process. That's the thesis of Hortonworks' CEO Rob Bearden who characterizes the evolution of linear supply chains that follow a set of procedural processes into a mesh of connected communities comprised of customers, suppliers, producers, manufacturers and service providers as Hyperbolic?