In the 1980s, suppliers like Procter & Gamble knew little about their products’ sales at rising retail behemoth Walmart, other than when restock orders arrived. Around this time, however, Walmart began experimenting with sharing its extensive data through Retail Link, a proprietary software, that facilitated electronic data interchange (EDI). Soon, P&G had access to data from the moment it shipped an item to the retailer up until its sale at a Walmart register.

This new data trove, ranging from inventory levels and store-level sales data, transformed P&G’s understanding of its products and, for Walmart, allowed for better forecasting and inventory management. The collaboration led to a $50 million swing in profitability for P&G within the first eight months and prompted Walmart to expand its data sharing offer to other suppliers. And from there, the rest is history.

A handful of other companies have also engaged in data sharing, generating significant value from it–and not just in retail. For example, the PC industry frequently shares data between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), chip manufacturers, and software companies, as illustrated by Intel and Dell joining forces to build a safer supply chain. Data sharing is not limited to supply chains; it can also involve competitors. For example, in the automotive insurance industry, U.S. companies teamed up to fight fraud with a claim-history information exchange called LexisNexis CLUE Auto. Given the range and scale of industry challenges that data sharing can address, the OECD estimates its value at a whopping 2.5% of global GDP.

Despite that substantial potential value, however, most companies have remained resistant to data collaboration. Why don’t more firms share data with others to tackle big, industry-wide problems that they simply cannot solve alone? The main reason is executives’ lingering sense that sharing data is more trouble than it’s worth, posing operational and regulatory hurdles along with creating new strategic risks.

That thinking, as we have recently argued, is increasingly out of date, as technology has profoundly changed the risk-to-reward ratio involved in data sharing. Understanding what technology now makes possible should lead many executives to reconsider their stance on data sharing.