Data is ubiquitous in organizations of all sizes, and data monetization means ultimately turning that information into revenue and other benefits. As Barbara H. Wixom, Cynthia M. Beath, and Leslie Owens put it in their valuable resource guide Data Is Everybody's Business: "Organizations use data not only to create valuable benefits--customer and employee satisfaction, brand capital, desired product enhancements, streamlined processes, or citizen welfare--but also to purposefully realize financial value--money--to improve their bottom line." The three authors are singularly qualified to help readers master this information, given that their insights arise from more than 28 years of research done through the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research.
Throughout the course of the book, they focus on showing how institutions of all kinds, whether nonprofit or corporate, can implement a "data-insight-action" plan that results in value realization (an improvement in the bottom line). Central to this is making access and understanding of data available to all job functions, not just those with "data" in their titles. The authors provide extensive guidance on how to engage, instruct, and empower potential data users at all levels. Three core ways that they identify all organizations can benefit from their data assets are: "improving," which creates efficiencies or reduces costs; "wrapping," which enhances the offering to the customer or user; and "selling," in which the data asset itself becomes a product and a source of revenue. The insights of Data Is Everybody's Business are clear, and critical for any institution looking to become "future ready." --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.