Data is a strategic asset that allows companies to acquire or maintain a competitive edge in the knowledge economy. To unlock the hidden value of data, firms should treat data as an integral part of their supply chain, because it impacts the entire ecosystem in which a firm operates.
- Products and other components of the corporate value chain can be broken down into their component parts and absorbed into the body of an organisation
- Firms should begin to treat data itself an integral part of their supply chain to unlock the hidden value of data
- The failure to quantify the “enterprise value of data” may not only rob a company of value, but may severely inhibit its ability to maximally benefit from the digital transformation process
It is truly surprising that, given the growing importance organisations attribute to the valuation of intangible assets, so few of them recognise just how significant the value of their data is, and how critical it can be to the success of the digital transformation process. Although a definition for what constitutes the “enterprise value of data” (EvD) has only recently been developed, EvD has the potential to become a centrepiece of corporate value creation and business continuity. The failure to quantify EvD may not only rob a company of value, but may severely inhibit its ability to maximally benefit from the digital transformation process.
In the knowledge economy, data is a strategic asset that allows companies to acquire or maintain a competitive edge. Indeed, as Eric Schmidt, Google’s co-founder and Alphabet’s CEO, has observed, data is so powerful that countries will likely go to war over it. Yet most organisations continue to struggle with the digital transformation process more generally, and have not even begun to contemplate EvD. Doing so requires a spectrum of capabilities designed to capture and organize vast amounts of data – diving deep into the so called “data lake”, making sense of that data, linking it to business objectives, and executing an effective and perpetually current data strategy. This is no simple task, and the truth is, very few organisations have the ability to do it, but attributing economic value to data is central to being able to manage it as a corporate asset.
