Informatica Perspectives

This is the last of the Data as an Asset series and what better way to wrap up the theme than with a view to the future. As stated by Thomas Redman, author of Data Driven, “Your company's data is a key business asset, and you need to manage it aggressively and professionally.” The future vision then is around Agile Data-Driven Enterprises. [Read more]

Two of the more common questions that arise when trying to effectively deploy Data Governance are; "Where do I begin?" and "What business areas should I include?".  If you start too narrowly, the value and credibility of the effort is questioned.   Be too aggressive, and delivery risk and scalability become a problem.  As usual, success comes down to defining and managing scope.   However, more times than not it is prudent to err on the small side, and here's why… [Read more]

A key benefit of implementing an Application Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) project is to reduce the amount of structured data in the data center.  Application ILM is a combination of a strategy and process that assesses information based on its business value and aligns the technology it resides on.  This process assures that the data center does not over allocate IT resources if the business doesn’t need it.  And likewise, if the business can provide detailed requirements for what it needs for its data, the IT department has a better idea of its technology forecasting needs.  Application ILM is a capacity planner’s friend.

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One aspect of an Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) project that often gets overlooked is deleting data. Once information has reached the end of its usefulness, delete it. It is the single-most cost effective task you can execute on an ILM project. If you don’t have the data, you don’t have to store it, manage it, or worry about it getting into the wrong hands. Delete it.

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Continuing with the Data as Asset series, in this posting I explore the negative side and what can happen when data becomes a liability. Physical assets such as buildings, equipment, or even money, can become a liability if not managed properly; buildings can become unsafe to work in, machinery can be dangerous to operate, and business investments can turn into money-sinks. Similarly, data and information systems can also be assets that provide economic value to the enterprise or they can be liabilities that destroy value or put the business at risk if not managed well. Here are three common scenarios. [Read more]

My last post on this theme A Market-based Approach To Valuing Data, introduced the idea of establishing an internal data economy as a way to value and manage data assets. Here now is a specific scenario for how this could work. I apologize in advance for the length of the posting, so please bear with me. The level of detail is necessary to demonstrate how an internal market can function in a practical manner. [Read more]

As per discussions in prior postings on Managing Data as Assets, yet another method for valuing assets is to use market prices (mark to market). This method works best in a market for a homogeneous product where no individual buyers or sellers can affect those prices by their own actions. Securities such as stocks and bonds fall into this category. If you own 1,000 shares of Informatica stock for example, you know exactly what they are worth at any time since there is a highly liquid market for them – it doesn’t matter what you paid to acquire the securities (except for tax purposes) and you don’t have to sell them to determine their value – you only need to look at what they are trading for at the moment. [Read more]

Continuing from my prior post Valuing Data Using Managerial Accounting Practices, you don’t actually need to put data assets on the public balance sheets to achieve the desired management focus You could use internal management accounting methods such as EVA (Economic Value Add). In EVA, operating costs that have long-run benefits (such as R&D, brand advertising, certain IT investments) are recorded as assets rather than operating expenses. EVA is generally calculated by line-of-business as EVA = NOPAT – (WACC * NOC)

• NOPAT = Net Operating Profit After Tax
• WACC = Working Average Cost of Capital
• NOC = Net Operating Capital [Read more]

You often hear people say “Information is our greatest asset”. If that’s true, why can’t we find “data” assets on the financial balance sheet? Some organizations do indeed capitalize IT investments, but primarily in order to spread the costs over a number of years and not because they are valuing their data assets. Occasionally you might find data on the balance sheet such as the customer lists valued at $14.5B on AT&T’s 2007 financial statements – but again this was a one-time event related to the acquisition of Bell South and not because AT&T systematically values their data. [Read more]

Is data architect a role that's interchangeable with enterprise architect? Many observers see the two roles are overlapping to some degree. However, perhaps it’s time that data architecture be recognized for having a distinct role in today's enterprises.

With the rise of service oriented architecture and distributed computing, enterprise architects have been emerging as key players in their organizations – assuring that applications and systems are designed within a coherent framework and follow a roadmap designed with the business in mind. Now, the same discipline needs to apply to an enterprise's data resources. [Read more]