Building up data assets is fundamental!

The notion of data assets is still too often ignored by companies. Yet it is essential, explains Matthieu Lentz, marketing director of JEMS Group, a company specialized in the industrialization of data projects.

Isn’t the control of corporate data first and foremost a human issue before being a technical one?

All contemporary technologies related to artificial intelligence and big data are present in our daily lives as citizens. However, we are not used to using them in companies to create services. Today, data in companies represents a considerable and often unknown value. It is what we call the data heritage, the assets inherited from the ancestors, with the company as the ancestor. And it is because we all often work in silos that this heritage remains unknown. The acculturation to data must now concern all levels of the company.

Isn’t the first step to define a methodology to know what to do with this data?

First of all, we need to do some mapping. Where is the data? Who has it? How was it collected and who uses it? At JEMS Group, we believe that all companies have a data heritage. This heritage is their most precious asset. From there, it will be possible to build new business models or new product lines.

We have put in place a very structured method to build these models. All the data is good. Nothing should be thrown away, whether it’s complete, incomplete, old data, data related to production systems, etc. You have to keep everything because the competing company does not have this data. It will be useful later on, even if we don’t know how today.

“The value of the company is now the data” is a statement that we hear more and more often. However, the value of an organization is far from being limited to this single aspect…

That’s right. Human capital and the production of goods and services also constitute the value of a company. When we stress that value is data, we want to make it clear that we are in a world that is bathed in data and that companies that continue to ignore it will end up being pushed out of their markets. Without a data strategy, a company can be marginalized overnight and expelled from the field of potential winners.

With what implications for a company like yours?

JEMS Group is a data industrialist. In this field, the advice we provide to our customers is essential as new technologies evolve at an impressive pace. This is why our teams are constantly trained to answer their requests, but also to alert them on fundamental points. We devote 5% of our turnover to training. An interesting figure: in 2020, at the height of COVID, 171 people were trained in new data and digital technologies. Career plans are re-evaluated every 6 months to constantly readapt.

READ the full article on lepoint.fr here

Matthieu LENTZ – JEMS CMO