The document discusses the significance of data as a strategic asset in business, highlighting notable acquisitions like LinkedIn and WhatsApp due to their data value. It presents a literature review identifying research gaps and proposes a four-step approach for organizations to evaluate their data assets effectively. The findings suggest that while much focus is on realizing business value from data, further exploration of data sources and governance is needed.

1. KIT – The Research University in the Helmholtz Association
KARLSRUHE SERVICE RESEARCH INSTITUTE (KSRI)
www.kit.edu
Exploring the Value of Data
A Research Agenda
Tobias Enders
IESS, September 2018

2. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
The value of data assets plays a significant role in various
business transactions
23/09/20182
Microsoft acquired LinkedIn (2016) Facebook acquired WhatsApp (2014)
§ Transaction volume was 26.2 bn USD
§ Price far beyond the sum of tangible and
intangible assets on the balance sheet
§ Due to the massive amounts of user data held
by LinkedIn
§ Transaction volume of 19 bn USD
§ WhatsApp only employed 55 people at the
time of the transaction
§ Access to 450 million active users
Sources:
Microsoft (2016)
Welt (2014)

3. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
As data being generated grows rapidly, organizations search
for ways to value their data assets
23/09/20183
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
2005 2010 2012 2015 2020
Estimated worldwide data by 2020
Datavolumeinexabyte
Reasons to evaluate data:
1
2
3
Direct data monetization
Internal investment
M&A
Establishing KPIs allows better planning, controlling and adjusting
Finance Customers Processes Data
?e.g. EBIT e.g. CLV e.g. Cycle
Time
Sources:
Turner et al. (2014)
Akred and Samani (2018)

4. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
The literature review will provide an overview of the
perspectives taken onto the topic of data value
20/09/20184
How can organizations value data as a strategic asset?
The objective of the literature review is to develop an understanding
of the research streams around the value of data.

5. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
Methodology: a structured literature research yielded 28
papers that address data value
20/09/20185
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Databases
§ AISeL
§ ScienceDirect
§ Scopus
§ EBSCO
Search on
§ Title, Abstract, Key Words
§ Key words: value AND data
Exclude
§ Tutorials, workshops,
abstracts-only, panels, blogs
Exclude papers that…
§ Look at value from a non-
economic perspective
§ Deal with IT investments in
general
§ Have a strong technical
focus
§ Have a strong focus on non-
profit organizations
Include
§ Forward search
§ Backward search
245 Papers 23 Papers 28 Papers
Source:
Webster and Watson (2002)

6. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
Results 1: The majority of research targets business value
derived from data while little attention is given to the source
20/09/20186
28
Papers
15 papers focus on realizing
business value 13 papers target data
management topics

7. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
Results 2: Three research streams have been identified that
broach the topic of data value
23/09/20187
Insight
Value
Value
Data Value Chain
3
2
Information
ValueData
Value
1
Business
Value
Research Gap
No conclusive research has been conducted on the data source itself –
independent of knowing all potential use cases.
Sources:
Abbasi et al. (2016)
Gao et al. (2015)
Seddon et al. (2017)

8. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
To further explore data value, a four-step approach is proposed
How can organizations determine the value of their data assets and how does that impact
their data management activities?
20/09/20188
Research Question
Criteria influencing the value of data
Clustering of data sources
Data Governance
Value Contribution
Modelvalidation
4
3
2
1

9. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
Understanding value drivers for data lets organizations cluster
their assets by value
Influencing Criteria
§ Current research suggests that
certain criteria may have an
influence on data value (e.g. re-
usability and the value decay over
time, data source, data quality)
23/09/20189
2
4
3
1
1
2
Clustering
§ Clusters may help focusing
investments on data (e.g. data
management, data acquisition)
Sources:
Otto (2011)
Malgieri and Custers (2018)
Mamonov and Triantoro (2018)

10. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
Introducing value-based governance guidelines allows
organizations to better manage and protect high-value assets
23/09/201810
3
4
Data Governance
§ Value-based management of data
§ May apply to guidelines such as
encryption, storage, access
management
Value Contribution
§ Allows comparison to organizational
non-data assets
§ Validate the results of initial studies
2
4
3
1

11. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
Limitations and future research
23/09/201811
§ With the proposed research
agenda, further research into the
field of data value is enabled
§ In addition to an internal view on
data value, an external view may be
taken into account
§ Proprietary knowledge may be
available in the industry only and
not available in public literature
§ Different approach of clustering the
relevant papers
Limitations Future Research

12. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
Karlsruhe Service Research Institute (KSRI)
Kaiserstr. 89 | Building 05.20
D-76133 Karlsruhe
@ksri_kit
www.ksri.kit.edu
Thank you –
please feel free to reach out!
20/09/2018
tobias.enders@kit.edu
Tobias Enders
Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
https://www.linkedin.com/company/karls
ruhe-service-research-institute-ksri-/

13. Karlsruhe Service Research Institute
www.ksri.kit.edu
References
Microsoft: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn,
https://news.microsoft.com/2016/06/13/microsoft-to-acquire-linkedin/.
Facebook kauft WhatsApp für 19 Milliarden Dollar
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article125021667/Facebook-kauft-WhatsApp-fuer-19-Milliarden-
Dollar.html.
Turner, V., Gantz J., Reinsel D., and S.M., 2014. The digital universe of opportunities: Rich
data and the increasing value of the internet of things. IDC / EMC Report, p.17.
Akred, J., Samani, A.: Your Data Is Worth More Than You Think,
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/your-data-is-worth-more-than-you-think/, last accessed
2018/02/20.
Malgieri, G., Custers, B.: Pricing privacy - the right to know the value of your personal data.
Comput. Law Secur. Rev. 34, 289–303 (2018).
Mamonov, S., Triantoro, T.M.: The strategic value of data resources in emergent industries.
Int. J. Inf. Manage. 39, 146–155 (2018).
Otto, B.: Data Governance. Bus. Inf. Syst. Eng. 3, 241–244 (2011).
23/09/201813
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]