Douglas B. Laney, an analyst with Gartner, makes a strong appearance with his first book, on a topic which is growing in strategic importance. Data analytics is a strong aspect of our consulting practice at Innovation Vista, and a key tool as we help organizations “Monetize” their tech & data.
GAAP may not accept organizational data as an asset, but choosing between two companies with the same financial metrics but vastly different levels and usage of data, it’s clear which the market should value more highly.
Laney provides multiple examples of organizations who’ve monetized their data successfully, from multiple industries, and points to some of the unique aspects of data which are not shared by other company assets: non-rivalrousness (when consumption by one consumer does not prevent simultaneous consumption by others) and non-depletability (when consumption does not prevent future consumption in similar/different ways).
Near the end of the book Laney dives deeper and provides thoughts on ways valuations might be calculated for various types of data. Five variables might contribute to these equations:
- data quality metrics
- user surveys
- administrative costs
- market pricing
- controlled experiments
More could have been said on this topic, and our framework for Monetizing IT & Data factors in other variables including the marginal efficiencies and potential incremental revenue gained by leveraging the data in descriptive (BI) or predictive (AI) analytics.
Overall though the book serves as a thought-provoking introduction to the idea, and the science, of treating data as a strategic asset for an organization. It is well worth a read.
