By Emma Brice, Senior Data Strategy Consultant and Hannah Francis, Executive Data and Analytics Consultant.
Data is often described as a strategic asset but what does that mean? It isn’t an asset such as a building or equipment; it’s intangible, an abstract representation of something else, but unlike physical assets, can be copied and distributed widely.
Data must be processed into information in order to add value and, without it, organisations struggle to articulate and meet their strategic aims.
If you’re asking yourself questions like:
How can I reach new markets?
How do we effectively target recruitment and sales?
How can we improve performance by understanding strengths and weaknesses?
You need to be using data to help with decision making, but you also need to understand the quality of the data being used to make them.
Make data fit for purpose
In order to treat data like an asset you can start by creating quality specifications for your data and putting processes in place to monitor that your standards are being met – don’t leave it to chance, make sure you have a sufficiently detailed understanding of what and where your data is and who is responsible for it.
Improve data management by mapping out processes, ensure data architecture has been documented and staff are well versed in data use and business rules – without this, data cannot be understood or useful. Make sure you do this in the right order – just as you wouldn’t build the top of a skyscraper before laying the foundations, you cannot architect after implementation.
As well as the risk to operational efficiencies and strategic insights, businesses have the added hurdle of meeting external regulatory data requirements and poor quality data returns can result in audit, fines, or even the retraction of funding.
Well managed data gives a level of assurance in terms of cyber security, knowing where your sensitive data is held and that it is being managed properly. But not just this, when data quality is enhanced, you know that the information you are being provided via business intelligence is trustworthy and you can gain more interesting and timely insights. The experience of staff is improved via more automated business processes that remove manual data entry, and access to reports and systems that provide the data they need to do their jobs well.
Data management is not just about security, or quality or accessibility, it also ensures that the foundations are in place so that when you want to innovate with data you can, anything from investigating new market areas and creating new products to fulfil customer demand.
But how do we quantify its value?
The practice of giving a real monetary value to data is still in its infancy, not least because most organisations do not understand what they are spending in terms of time or technology to enter, process, store and gain insight from their data. If we were to think about the value of university student data as an example, a student cannot participate without a student record, so at a minimum it is worth a student’s fees, but the creation and maintenance of that record requires input from many different departments and from the student themselves. Beyond these operational realities lie questions of the strategic value of data – what would be the financial impact to a university if it only grew by a quarter or half of the targets that have been set?
A data management strategy will set out the starting point for improvement activities and can cover many themes such as data governance, data quality, technology and data culture. This guidance should be the cornerstone of a digital organisation.
To find out more about data management, governance and use, get in touch with our team at info@waterstons.com