Leading in Analytics

TASK 3The Data

AMORPHOUS ASSET

Data has become one of the most valuable assets of the 21st century. Indeed, we have reached the point that sometimes a company's data can actually be worth more than the entire company, as Forbes¹ shared in a news report in which both United Airlines and American Airlines were able to secure multibillion‐dollar loans based on lenders valuing their data two to three times more than the value of their entire market capitalization. Yes, that is right. You could purchase either major airline and all of their assets, including the data they owned, for less than half the value of the data alone.

This type of valuation of data, especially for a traditional company, would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago. The message is clear. Data is an incredibly valuable asset. However, it is also a very amorphous asset. It is one you cannot see that often lives in the cloud, one that many do not really understand, and one that is difficult for executives to manage effectively, especially traditional ones trained before the age of Big Data.

This chapter focuses on helping you understand the source of your data's value and what attributes it has compared to traditional assets to manage it more effectively. First, we show how you can identify where that value is and what it is worth followed by how to harness and enhance that value. Finally, we show how you can safeguard the value of your asset by more effectively managing and improving your data's quality. ...