In a coronavirus-ruled world, data is king. Take beleaguered U.S. airlines American and United. In an effort to survive the pandemic, both have mortgaged their loyalty programs.

When the value was revealed, what most had seen as a marketing tactic turned out to be a massive revenue driver worth tens of billions of dollars. In fact, the data from those mileage programs made them worth more than double the airlines themselves.

“The bottom line is that companies are realizing that data is an asset,” said Doug Laney (pictured), principal of data and analytics strategy at Caserta. “It needs to be not just measured as one and managed as one, but also monetized as an asset.”

Laney spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the MIT Chief Data Officer and Information Quality Symposium. They discussed the increasing value of data and how businesses can build new revenue streams from untapped data resources.

Identifying data assets that generate new value streams

Converting from a product- or service-driven company to a data company takes a high degree of data literacy. But it’s an evolution that has to happen to stay relevant in a digital world. Describing the process as a “long road,” Laney quotes the chief information officer of a 150-year-old consumer brand that is currently working to become more data-driven.

“We hear the CIO say: ‘We want people to understand that we’re a data company that just happens to produce this product. We’re not a product company that generates data,” Laney said. “And once we realize that and started behaving in that fashion, then we’ll be able to really win and thrive in our marketplace.’”

As regulations such as the European General Data Protection Regulation act and California’s Consumer Privacy Act restrict company’s ability to sell data, new and more creative ways of monetizing data assets are being put into play. “You can deliver analytics; you can report on it; you can use it internally to generate improved business process performance,” Laney said. “And as long as you’re measuring how data’s being applied and what its impact is, then you’re in a position to claim that you’re monetizing it.”

One way Caserta has been helping companies create revenue from data is through what he calls “inverted data monetization.” With this method, a company doesn’t share customer data with marketers, but instead introduces products to their client base for a referral fee or commission.

A hospital, for example, can’t sell patient data but can recommend certain products to relevant patients based on their diagnosis, including healthy meal plans, gym memberships and glucose-test kits to diabetes patients, mental agility games, medical alert devices and mobility aids for stroke patients.

“We’ve identified hundreds of millions of dollars of incremental value for organizations from data that they’re just sitting on,” Laney said. “When we talk about monetizing data, that’s what we mean: Generating new value streams.”

Now needed: Data curators

Data curator is a role that Laney believes is essential for any data-driven company. “Most companies have an entire department that procures office supplies, but they don’t have anybody who’s procuring data supplies,” he said. “When you think about which is more valuable to an organization, how do you not have somebody who’s dedicated to identifying the world of external data assets that are out there?”

This position would be responsible for identifying potentially valuable external data assets, testing them, evaluating them, negotiating and then figuring out how to ingest that data, according to Laney.

“There are 10 million data sets published by government, organizations and NGOs,” he noted. “There are thousands and thousands of data brokers aggregating and sharing data. There’s web content that can be harvested; there’s data from your partners and suppliers; there’s data from social media. To not have somebody who’s on top of all that, it demonstrates gross negligence by the organization.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the MIT Chief Data Officer and Information Quality Symposium:

Photo: SiliconANGLE