The Value of Data
Our sixth post looks at the multiple ways that data holds value, either for an individual, a business, a sporting organisation or society as a whole. Depending on the type of data the value can be monetary; it can help determine performance towards goals; or can monitor key health indicators.
In general, we can say that data delivers insights which can inform decision making, encouraging us to take action which will increase monetary returns, or improve outcomes in other valuable ways.
Here we asked our team to share examples of what the value of data means to them, in their experience. Some contributions are personal, others are more general. The first 3 up are John Spillane, John J. Spillane and Debbie Lonsdale. More to follow…
1. John Spillane (Technical Director DBI)
Converting Loose Data to Value
How many of you have coin jars at home, some of which contain quite a bit of money and which you never get around to converting into spendable currency?
The reason we never convert the coin jars, is because we know that it isn’t just one jar, there is loose change lying in drawers and under beds. Some of it imight be even be foreign money, surplus from a lifetime of holidays, and none of it can easily be converted to a bank deposit, because it has to be found and bagged in the right amounts, which is time consuming and onerous.
This is analogous to data that is sitting in your company that has value but which hasn’t been converted to real money. It hides a myriad of opportunities that could be realised in your company but, without a specially designed tool to do the heavy-lifting, this is just an impossibly long and difficult task.
In the world of data, Business Intelligence applications can do the equivalent of collecting all the coins, bagging them and depositing the cash straight into your account with a minimum of effort. And they can keep doing this over and over and giving you a running balance of how much value is there to be claimed.
Of course there is still effort involved. If the system is telling you that 10% of your stock is just warming shelves, you must put a plan in place to move this stock. But BI can break the problem down into different areas of responsibility, and help you monitor how successful you are at realising the hidden value.
Ultimately it can tell you when you’ve reached the point at which the cost of converting it to cash is outweighed by the effort. A bit like searching under all the beds for hours, looking for coins and only turning up 20 cents. BI can stop that wasted effort, because it knows where the opportunities are and what they are worth.
The beauty of it all is that with the right BI tool and consulting company, the time and cost that you have to invest in finding these gems is negligible , compared with the value that is uncovered.
2. John J. Spillane (BI Consultant DBI)
Value from Combining App Usage
I would say I use two or three individual apps that group together and inspire me to get out and do some hiking while fulfilling my pastime of photography. The first app is called “All Trails” and it provides a data set of all the hiking trails that are available in my area. It also lets me explore the trails in different areas if I plan on going further away. An app that I sometimes use along with “All Trails” is “Location Scout”. On this app, people enter pictures and location data for some of the most picturesque places around and I can use “All Trails” to see the hike they took to get there.
The other app I use is called “Samsung Health”. This app counts steps, tracks sleep and, my favourite feature, tracks your phone usage. I enjoy having a good route to hike and getting some nice pictures – and there is always the secondary payoff of a high step-count, a good sleep score and a lower-than-average phone usage metric.
3. Debbie Lonsdale (Senior BI Consultant DBI)
What Value Do You Put on Health?
There’s an old saying “your health is your wealth” and a newer one that I just coined “ your health data is your wealth”, because if you can track some key data points relating to your physical well-being, you are in a much better position to be able to preserve your health.
Besides the usual checkups that you can get through your GP – which capture snapshots of data about your blood pressure, heart rate, and blood analysis for monitoring key health indicators such as your HbA1C level – an indicator of diabetes, and cholesterol, there are personal health apps such as Fitbit, Garmin, Apple Health, Samsung Health that you can use every day.
These apps, often paired with wearables, track daily activities like steps, heart rate, sleep patterns, and even stress levels. They provide insights into physical activity, sleep quality, and overall health trends over time.
My own experience of using a Fitbit was invaluable when I started getting arrythmia and an occasional racing heart rate. It made me take action and visit the GP, who quickly sent me off for a cardiology assessment after an ECG in the surgery confirmed the data on the Fitbit.
