A 10 percent increase in the usability of enterprise data could translate to $2 billion (BILLION!) in additional revenue every year. So says a recent study by Sybase, Inc. and the University of Texas. The study details how improvements in data efficiency can lead to measurable financial gain.

“Measuring the Business Impacts of Effective Data,” illustrates the direct correlation between an organization’s IT investments and overall business performance.

The Financial Impacts of Effective DataT

he study looks at how even the most incremental investments put into improving the versatility of data delivers impacts on the following key business performance metrics.

  • Employee productivity is influenced by the usability of data. According to the study, a 10 percent jump in data usability increases sales per employee by 14.4 percent. Here’s the kicker – if applied to the median sales per employee ($388,000), the median organization could increase this financial measure by $55,900 per employee annually.
  • Return on equity (ROE) is affected by data quality and sales mobility. When both of these data attributes are improved by 10 percent, ROE increases by 16 percent. When applied to the organization with the median net income in the study ($410.47 million), a 16 percent increase in ROE would deliver an annual increase of $65.67 million in net income.