Step six to becoming a data-driven organization: monetize your data

In the sixth in a series of blogs focusing on the six steps organizations should take to become data-driven, we look at what happens when your organization starts to realize the value of sharing data outside the business with customers, suppliers, and partners.

This series began by examining the importance of a modern data architecture, the role of automation in data integration, and why analytics doesn’t support a one size fits all approach. Previously, we looked at how to identify the key metrics in your organization.

The two most common drivers to monetizing data involve either creating new revenue streams or providing added-value analytics on your core product or service that differentiates your offering in the marketplace, often improving customer loyalty at the same time. It is perfectly possible to combine both approaches too.

Please read about how American Express Global Business Travel is using Infor Birst® to deliver its Premier Insights product. This application provides 110+ valuable metrics, allowing its customers to manage travel spend through peer-to-peer benchmarking, travel cost optimization, and understanding employee travel behavior.

Building an analytic product is probably a new concept for your organization. The good news is that there is lots of practical advice available to help, often gleaned from the data-driven organizations that have done this already. A typical analytical product requires a business case, a go-to-market strategy, development, and finally, a product launch. You can read more about this process in how to plan, build, and launch an embedded analytics product guide.

The virtual tenant architecture described in our blog on data-as-a-service can considerably reduce the time and effort required to onboard and manage customers. With this architecture, each tenant represents a space for a customer or developer to work independently without having to duplicate data for each tenant created. This drives down costs as you grow usage, but also allows users to work securely in their spaces without affecting or corrupting other customers.

Read why monetizing data really is the culmination of the journey to becoming data-driven in our best practice guide on the six steps to becoming a data-driven organization