Once data assets have been identified, the process of valuing a company’s data assets begins and is both complex and situationally subjective. It is critical to do this properly depending on the use case that is ideal for your company. For example, many companies value their customer database above all else, which is typically low quality or available from increasingly more sources. DataSmart views the value of each dataset not just through its existence, but by its potential combination with additional, often external, sources of information.

Following the internal analysis and audit of your available data as well as the identification of your external data assets created around or about your business, you can begin to assess the value of this data. While there is no way to explain or provide an exact valuation of your data, DataSmart Consultants will outline clearly that there are several classes of data and what makes them valuable. These are generalities and will certainly be different than your experience, but as a framework to analyze and construct your data partnership strategy, it is important that you get an honest assessment your data value.

The other benefit of going through a valuation exercise is that it can be a proper forcing function to change your overall data strategy. Countless companies move through a discovery process that uncovers the need to change the way they approach their data gathering, storage, and access to datasets created by or about their business. When we define the key ways your data can have value, this will become quite obvious.

Lastly, it’s important to recognize that this process of identifying and valuing assets is an ongoing one. There is never a total value, just a point in time value, as you refine your approach and your strategies. From the perspective of building data partnerships, every potential relationship is unique and the data trash of one partner can certainly be the data treasure of another.