Unlocking Trapped Value Starts with Data

Dan Eline, Senior Director, Platform

Digital transformation has created significant new value for enterprises globally. The ability to develop new products and services, optimise existing operational processes, and utilise new generations of turnkey services between partners, vendors and customers have all been enabled by this process. However, one aspect of digital transformation which often gets overlooked is how it enables enterprises to generate and collect unprecedented amounts of data that can, if understood, be used to create additional value.

Understanding Trapped Value in Data

Across the world, businesses are generating more data than ever before and from a large variety of sources. Whether we typically think data includes content, business metric information, user records or metadata — that is, data about data itself, these data types are becoming increasingly critical to the business agenda. But, unfortunately, today, much of it sits unused. The World Economic Forum estimates that we could secure around $100 trillion of incremental gross domestic product (GDP) growth if we could fully unlock the value of this data. One of the keys to achieving this is to help businesses understand how data affects them. Not as a concept but as a source of value that we think of today as tangible, with actual physical gravity and generational value that they could use to their advantage.

Data Gravity and the Value of Data

Data Gravity is the principle that a body of data will attract other data over time, as well as applications and services which use that data. For example, suppose an organisation has multiple branch offices. Each office generates data and metadata, thus creating a level of Data Gravity over time, where each office becomes a self-contained data island. Unfortunately, many businesses avoid moving their data because of the potential cost to perform the move – financially, technically, and organisationally – and so it is easy for their data to become siloed due to its increasing buildup of gravity. Remember? Data attracts more data which compounds exponentially over time.

So, why is that a problem? The problems with not moving the data over time could include:

• Security: It is challenging to pinpoint exactly where all sensitive data is stored. Additionally, meeting data governance, data privacy and compliance restrictions across many individual data stores to ensure that sensitive data is stored safely is hard. However, the loss of customer trust and the impact of losing trade secrets or intellectual property due to not securing data is infinitely more costly.
• Geographical: Growing data stores across disparate physical locations will require travel and/or remote support and possible downtime due to continual maintenance.
• Data Analysis: Branch-level data provides minimal operational context. Only complete datasets at the organisational level will allow access to valuable strategic insights.

Strategies to Unlock Data Value

To extract the total value from an organisation’s data, they must understand how and where it generates. Also, how to bring it together to the point of aggregation where sophisticated data analysis understands what that data means. Not just in the context of its local environment but within the global operating environment of the entire business – and be able to do so in a practical, economical fashion.

The difference between extracting this value or not can be very significant, as modern enterprises start incorporating sophisticated data analysis methods into their daily operations. For example, when using data and metadata to determine capabilities such as global sentiment analysis in near real-time, a global social media audience's reaction to a company's products is no longer restricted to the world's largest brands. By overcoming Data Gravity and bringing multiple data sources together in a practical, economical fashion, enterprises of any scale can realise substantial business benefits. By 2025, 80% of data worldwide will reside in enterprises, and being able to extract its full value will bring essential growth.

Unlocking Value: Practical Steps

Here are practical steps to unlock your data:

1. Assess your current data landscape and identify data silos.
2. Implement data integration tools supported by Digital Realty’s global data centre network.
3. Leverage analytics and machine learning to derive actionable insights from your data.
4. Continuously monitor and optimise data management practices to keep up with evolving business needs.

Conclusion

Unlocking trapped value and maximising data utility are essential for any modern enterprise looking to thrive in a data-driven world. Digital Realty’s PlatformDIGITAL® is your partner in navigating the complexities of data management and unlocking the full potential of your data. Contact us today to learn how we can help you overcome trapped data challenges and unlock significant value from your data.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Trapped Value in Data?

Trapped value refers to data that remains unused or underutilised within an organisation, often locked away in silos and inaccessible for valuable analysis.

How Can Businesses Unlock Data Value?

Businesses can unlock data value by integrating and analysing disparate data sources, leveraging platforms like Digital Realty's PlatformDIGITAL® to manage data effectively.

What Are the Challenges of Trapped Data?

Trapped data challenges include data silos, data gravity, and the complexity of data management across distributed environments.

What Are the Benefits of Unlocking Value from Your Data?

Unlocking value from your data can lead to improved decision-making, increased operational efficiency, and the discovery of new revenue opportunities.