Making Your Data's Full Value Indisputable
Measuring data’s importance
Getting the right resources
Operating as a strategic CDO
To be a successful data leader, you need to spend your limited time on the most important things. Doing that means knowing how data supports your business and which areas need the most attention.
In just 6 weeks, we analyse thousands of data points across all dimensions of great data management. This shows you how data mature your organisation is, and how data mature people in your business think it is.
Our organisation-wide survey measures seven dimensions: Data Strategy and Value Management, Governance, Architecture, Data Management, Data Quality Management, Data Technology Architecture and Data Usage, including analytics.
The results are produced in a dashboard so you can see them from different perspectives – geographic, business unit and functional levels – so you understand both the reality and the perception. From there, you know exactly where to focus.
Data is one of the most strategic and valuable assets an organisation has. But it’s not often seen that way. In most organisations data is seen as a cost, and because technology is more tangible, it may well be forgotten.
That’s why we developed our approach to data valuation. It’s not an exercise in accounting, it’s a way of transforming data from a cost into an asset, one that’s value is understood by everyone in the business.
We calculate the value, in monetary terms, of your different data assets. This starts by identifying all the activities that drive value for your stakeholders. Then we work out and measure how data dependent each activity is using carefully trained technology. These numbers then give you the language to think about data as a strategic asset.
Sounds complicated? It is, but we do that bit. You get a monetary value on your portfolio of data assets, with a map of how your organisation creates value.
For the first time, many of our clients are able to compare the return on investment in data versus other investments, such as buildings, plant or other equipment. At one of our clients, the valuation work we completed changed the Board conversation about data, once they knew that for every £2 of physical assets, they have £1 of data assets.
Data Condition
If your data isn’t giving you the insights you need, or you don’t have the evidence to prove to the business just how much work is needed on your data, we call it a data condition problem.
Data condition isn’t the same as data quality. The latter is a technical measure, the former is a business measure. Our data condition framework and tools measure two things. One, how fit for purpose data assets are. Two, what state the business needs them to be in to perform at its best, and what business results that would deliver.
Our work shows you the root causes of any issues so you know what to fix in the business to make the data perform better for the business. And, it gives you the measures to prove it needs doing, and how much difference it’s made.
Data Condition gives you a thorough understanding of how to improve your data assets. At this point, our clients kept asking us to go deeper, so we developed our Remediation service.
This gives you a detailed, costed plan with clear connections to the business’ objectives. You then have everything you need to decide where to invest, and to make the strongest business case.
Often, we work with client data teams to build the plans together. That way the client can then apply the methodology themselves.
Project Prioritisation
You’ve probably spotted the theme that runs through all our work. We use data to help our clients know where to focus on their data. In complex organisations, one of the fastest ways for the data team to deliver business results is to better prioritise data projects.
There’s a few reasons why. Data assets often underpin multiple use cases, but the business thinks in terms of use cases. Because of this, there’s often a lot of duplication in data projects. Our tool gives you a view from the data asset perspective, so you can see the duplication.
People writing project requests and plans don’t always understand data, and the systems used to capture data projects are rarely designed with data in mind. Because of this, the right questions don’t always get asked and projects are under-costed, or the results under-estimated.
Our tool brings simple but effective structure to capturing and assessing projects. It’s stage-gated to make it easier for the user and the data team managing it. It gives you an organisation-wide project pipeline view, showing how projects connect to data assets, business objectives and results and stakeholders, so you can make the best decisions on your data projects.
Assurance Reporting
Knowing what you’ve achieved is a critical part of any strategy. With data strategy, it’s a hard thing to do, because data is intangible. Proving the results not only shows the business you’re doing a great job, it also helps you get more resource to deliver more.
Our assurance reporting brings together outputs from the diagnostic, valuation and data condition to give a full picture for the business. We also find out what the business needs to know to feel assured about data. This extra insight makes it easier for you to manage internal stakeholders.
This solution puts data asset management on a par with the management of all other assets, so you can work at a more strategic level.
Resources
A Guide To Data Valuation
A Guide To Data Asset Management
A Guide To Data Condition
A Guide To Data Governance
A Guide To Data Management
Insights
Data culture in three components
Data quality vs data condition: the power of context
Why managing data as an asset is inevitable
Different data valuation methodologies
Measuring the value of intangible assets
Data valuation – what is your data worth?