TULSA, Okla., April 4, 2019 – Information technology leaders often say data is an asset when they want to persuade their business counterparts to increase organizational investment in data management. But are we convincing them? This question will be addressed by Stonebridge Consulting’s Trevor Hicks during his presentation “Data Is an Asset: Say It Like You Know What It Means” at the 2019 Houston Professional Petroleum Data Expo.
When IT professionals say that data is an asset, Hicks explains, we are consciously choosing to the language of finance to make our case. IT management uses the term ‘asset’ colloquially to express a general idea that data is a valuable thing. For finance professionals, however, the term has a precise meaning. An asset is an owned resource expected to produce future cash flow. Data does not meet this definition. Hicks believes this disconnect is problematic for IT management.
“The ‘data is an asset’ trope doesn’t pass the sniff test with financial folks,” Hicks says. “When we use business language imprecisely to convince business people to invest in our work, we lose credibility. In business as in life, our credibility is everything.”
In his presentation Hicks will offer attendees a novel approach to demonstrate how data’s implicit value can be calculated to attract an optimal level of investment in enterprise data management.
“I suggest that our success depends on communication, on the words we choose to use and how our words are heard and interpreted by those we are trying to persuade,” Hicks says. “If we’re going to continue to say that data is an asset, we need to be a lot more precise with our language, and that means using the term ‘asset’ like you know what it means. And I want to share my thoughts on a credible, defensible way to say data is an asset.”
Hicks will address the Professional Petroleum Data Expo on Wednesday, April 10th at 9 a.m. The event, which is sponsored by the Professional Petroleum Data Management (PPDM) Association, takes place April 9-10 at the Westin Houston Memorial City.
Trevor Hicks is a managing director at Stonebridge. Before joining the company in 2015, Hicks held senior management roles at Noah Consulting, Baker Hughes, DNV GL and Schlumberger. He currently serves on the PPDM Board of Directors and is a former multi-term PPDM Board Chairman. Trevor holds a bachelor’s degree in math from the University of Tulsa, a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin, and a master’s degree in business administration from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. He also has achieved the designation of Certified Petroleum Data Analyst (CPDA) With Distinction.
About Stonebridge Consulting, LLC
Stonebridge Consulting provides business advisory and technology services for next-gen oil and gas. We serve the oil and gas industry exclusively. Our industry expertise, proven methodologies, and extensive project IP and solution accelerators enable us to deliver projects faster, generating measurable improvements in operational efficiency and saving project time and costs by as much as 50 percent. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbconsulting.com.
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