Research launch reveals the business value of data

Last week DocAuthority launched ground-breaking research into the value of business data with the Ponemon Institute. Launch attendees were given a sneak preview of the report findings and context on their significance by a panel that included Dr Larry Ponemon, founder of the Ponemon Institute and research lead, and our CEO Steve Abbott and CTO Ariel Peled.

The research – of more than 2,800 businesses in the US and UK and conducted per record type across multiple verticals – investigated whether there was a disconnect between the value attributed to data by business users and the IT teams that manage access to data.

The team also wanted to discover a method for effectively communicating the value of data to senior executive teams and, vitally, the importance of protecting the data that really matters to the business.

If you missed it on the day, here are the highlights from the launch.

Not all data is equal

Steve Abbott opened up with an introduction to DocAuthority – including the fact that our founding members were pioneers of Data Loss Prevention back in 2001. 

We then got a chance to hear Dr Larry Ponemon deliver his thoughts on the research, on which he said: “We do lots of studies but this one has real gravitas and is of huge benefit to organisations.” 

Dr Ponemon talked us through the Ponemon Institute’s approach to compiling the research and highlighted some of the key findings from the research, including:

• Not all information asset types are equal
• The fresher information is, the higher its value
• The cost to recreate different information assets and deal with the negative consequences of data leakage varies significantly
• Businesses’ ability to accurately value information assets has practical implications

Dr Ponemon went on to describe how the research finds discrepancies in how businesses value their information assets. For example, IT Security values R&D documents at 50% less than the value the business places on reconstructing it, while it also significantly underestimates the cost of financial report leakage. You can see some of the highlight charts, watch the full launch and download the report in my full blog posting via the link below.

Business value attributed to unstructured data - finally!