The value of data. Start with why.

“Data, blah, blah, blah.”

That was my five year old nephew’s summary of my podcasting debut last week on Kyle Winterbottom ’s Driven by Data Podcast.

My nephew has no filter. He calls it how sees it. Or in this case, hears it. It got me thinking. What if that’s what the audience heard?

What if I failed to communicate why we do what we do at Anmut, why I’m passionate about it, and why I think others should be too?

I was reminded of Simon Sinek’s TEDTalk, ‘Start with why’. The key takeaway:

“People don’t buy what you do, people buy why you do it.”

Why

If I could hit rewind and take another swing, here’s how I would now answer Kyle’s question:

“Tell us a little bit about Anmut, what you do, the challenges you solve and for whom?”

We believe that data is essential for a productive, prosperous and purposeful future.

We have a vision that one day all data will have a universally recognised and quantifiable current and future value, both internally and externally to the organisation.

Within organisations (include here governments and nations) data is treated (managed, invested in etc) according to its value.

And data is exchanged or shared according to the quantified value.

We see potential social welfare value to the wider economy, and not just private value to the organisations that control specific data assets.

By understanding the value of data and the impact it has, we can turn it into a source of competitive advantage and positive impact for everyone.

(I welcome suggestions on how to turn my 120 words on why, into something closer to 40, while retaining the meaning and nuances.)

Imagine the alternative

A dystopian counter-vision of the future might feature a growing gap, in terms of productivity and profitability, between organisations that can use data intensively and the rest.

The incentives to maximise profits may override social welfare value.

We find ourselves lacking the imagination, policy frameworks and consensus on the methods for empirically determining the broader value of data.

As a result we risk failing to realise data’s full potential.

Imagine a world in which a handful of big companies have the organisational capabilities and management science necessary to sequester and manipulate huge volumes of potentially useful data behind the firewalls of their platforms.

Profit seeking incentives and lack of regulatory oversight encourage them to leverage that data at the expense of not only other organisations that can’t compete with their scale and proficiency with data, but also the wellbeing of society and the environment.

Could this really happen…?

…sure.

In 2023 the big tech “Magnificent 7” stocks made up 29% of the value of S&P 500 index. They returned a gain for shareholders of 71% while the other 493 stocks added just 6% in market capitalisation. In the first quarter of 2024, Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft have returned double digit growth as investors continue to seek out potential AI winners. What does AI run on?

How can you avoid this happening to your organisation?

As a business or data leader:

• You need to know what data you’re most dependent on to achieve your strategic ambitions.
• You need the data you’re presented with in corporate scorecards and dashboards to both challenge and reflect the ‘truth’ about your organisation.
• You need a fact-based roadmap to help you close the gaps between the data you have today, and the data you need tomorrow to thrive.
• You need to prioritise efforts on the data that will hold you back from executing, or enable you to get faster, better, cheaper outcomes.
• You need to transform data from a risk to be managed into a source of competitive advantage.
• You need a business strategy enabled by fit for purpose data. (You don’t want or need another data/digital strategy).

So, you need the insights and tools to manage your most important data, like you would want for any other business critical asset. You need line of sight between your organisation’s purpose and objectives, and the data you need to achieve them. You need a plan for your data that is fully integrated with your business priorities.

What Anmut does

We help our clients realise the full potential of their data by measuring the value, fitness for purpose and impact of your most important data assets, on your target outcomes, your competitive advantage, as well as the communities and environment in which you operate.

If you want to learn more about why we do what we do, and how it can help your organisation, follow me on LinkedIn, check out our website and Grace our strategic data asset management product.