SaaS models evolve into data as an asset

SaaS models are evolving, and Dr Catherine Lopes, founder and director at OpsDo Analytics believes they are morphing into a data as an asset model.

OpsDo Analytics helps organisations to build a data and analytics strategy, and make their data valuable. Lopes told Digital Nation Australia that big data is now being bundled with software and analytics and delivered as a service.

According to Lopes, “The big thing for the organisation is how do you define what is the criteria for your organisation for your data as an asset?”

For data to become an asset to an organisation, Lopes explains that organisations must determine where the data is coming from, determine people’s skills and access to the data and also the data’s ability to “talk with technology.”

The skillsets required of the different levels of the business can be broken down into the c-suite, middle management and the “do-ers’, said Lopes. For the first two groups, the demand for skills has increased in the last few years.

However even among these groups, it also varies based on industry and the type of business.

“If you are saying, ‘I'm a fin tech, or I'm a start-up and I’m in the c-suite and so my business is based on the analytical data to drive this organisation’, the ask for the c-suite is to understand not only on paper to say ‘This is my vision’. You really need to have a little bit deeper understanding what actually that data analytics can do, because that's your top of business,” she said.

However if it’s not core to the business but data and analytics is being used to control costs or drive business growth, Lopes said that senior leadership must be educated enough to translate the data into action, and drive value for the business.