Much has been written about ‘Data as new oil’, ‘Data as an asset’, ‘Data Driven Decisions’ and probably the world has stopped counting the volume of data being generated. The world is a dynamic place today and conventional methods of sales, customer reach and service are getting outdated with each passing day. The need of the hour is to understand the concept of ‘Personalization’. The intent is to adopt it as a culture and not just implementing in systems. The pandemic has in a way enforced ‘Digital’. Choices available to the customer have grown multi-fold, social trends and open feedback defines the sentiments and sales curve. This is applicable across industry domains, be it Banking, eCommerce, Telecomm, etc, and socio-political organizations. Enterprises need to understand Customer Persona as what is happening in his / her real life and relate to it. Access to the real-time world helps enterprises add ‘Empathy’ to their portfolio. This is a new differentiating factor that can drive sales in either direction. A family could be approached for an educational loan while the kid’s 12th-grade results are out. Similarly, it is good to sell a life insurance policy for birth in the family instead of a credit card.

We all know the quantum of sales and savings acknowledged by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook & Netflix based on their algorithms. Jumping to the foray is Indian Railways, a Government undertaking. They are planning to generate INR 1000 Crore in revenue through digital monetization. Political Parties across the world are generating new ways to understand the common man's sentiments, likes, dislikes, population percentage by age groups, pain points, etc.

While there is a general acknowledgment of the value of data, not all data is equally valuable. It needs to be prepared, cleaned, profiled, and related to other data sets be it spending, social, medical, or travel to make it valuable. A significant payment to a hospital by an individual may indicate a shortfall in medical insurance coverage and thus an opportunity to help customers with the right offer. This refined data is an asset with an economic value. To make the arrangement relatively more formal, recognize data as a separate business domain in every org, with prepared data sets as the products. This could be the foundation of a data market Place with a ‘Pay Per Use’ Policy.  With multiple sources of data and diversified business objectives, Data Leaders need to ascertain and prioritize the focus areas. Like any other dept, he/she has limited resources, and the preparation of a finished product will require time and effort. The primary driver is the estimated value for every initiative, be it productivity or monetary, as agreed in line with organization goals.

Any valuable product runs an inherent risk of being stolen. Data leaders must account for data protection costs in terms of people, regulatory fines insurance, etc. Recognizing data as a formal product will also help push the data governance agenda in every organization. With a cost and P&L attached to every initiative, organically, both data and business debts will look for ways of reusability and self-service. It is expected to drive 40% of tangible efficiency gains and bring consistency and trust to organization reporting.

While cost factors are relatively easier to perimeter-size, valuation can be done in many ways. This could be based on estimated market value or targeted revenue cost incurred or maybe a combination. Accounting standards across geographies also need to catch up and formalize the rules. This is not very different from getting prepared datasets from market research firms. The valuation methods need to be dynamic as organizations may want to adopt a method based on market and socio-economic conditions. Listing on the balance sheet will also formalize the onboarding, storage, governance, security, and quality processes. It may take a while to reach a leveled road with generally accepted guidelines. We need to start though!