Just like an educated workforce is the lifeblood of the knowledge economy, data is now the lifeblood of the digital economy.

Today’s business world runs on data.

"Data is the new oil”.

Oil is buried deep under the earth and becomes valuable once we learned how to extract and process them to become fuel to generate energy. And, it's the same with data.

In this post, you'll learn why cash flow is King, but data flow is Queen.

Summary of topics discussed in this post:

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Traditionally, the roles of the CFO consisted of the Operator and Steward. But now, those roles have evolved. Discover the 4 roles every CFO must master in this podcast episode and blog post.

DATA and CASH

DATA, like oil, is an immensely untapped valuable asset. Those who manage to extract and unlock its value will be rewarded with Sustained Profitable Growth and CASH.

CASH is KING and DATA is QUEEN. Behind every successful man [KING] there is a woman [QUEEN]. In the digital world, Data generates Cash, not the other way around. Cash generation is the consequence of data management.

Everything we do today leaves digital footprints. This vast pool of data is an immensely untapped valuable strategic asset. Big data and cloud computing technology improve the available data, the accessibility of data, and the speed of data processing. It enables agility in data management and the capability to uncover valuable data-driven insights to drive and impact business performance.

Data allows us to gain and act on customer insights, predict future financial and market trends, and enact systemic change for social good. The ability to mine and unlock the intrinsic value of data will deliver actionable business insights, discover new business models, generate new revenue streams, and enhance customer experience.

By monetizing the financial value of DATA, the organization gains the competitive advantage to generate sustained profitable growth and ultimately CASH.

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DATA FLOW and CASH FLOW

In the living world, nothing is so much taken for granted as breath, the literal source of our lifeblood. Breath is invisible yet ever-present and vital for living beings. The inability to breathe silences people and polluted air shuts those with breathing difficulties behind the protection of closed doors.

Just like living beings, business is dynamic, not static. Business needs to breathe with unpolluted data. Unfortunately, data is an intangible asset that doesn’t have a place or value in the balance sheet. Data is the oxygen that is vital and needed by businesses to breathe in the digital economy.

Human beings need to breathe so that the blood can flow and circulate in the body ecosystem. The same thing applies to the business world. To achieve sustained profitable growth, business needs to continuously have quality DATA FLOW in the business ecosystem to generate continuous positive CASH FLOW.

Here is the best way to illustrate static vs dynamic using the mathematical formula:

  • Static: (1+0%)^365 is equal to 1.00
  • Dynamic: (1+1%)^365 is equal to 37.78
Static Cash (Idle Cash) is not KING and Static Data (Historical Data) is not QUEEN. Positive Cash Flow is KING and Quality Data Flow is QUEEN.
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DATA FLOW Cycle and CASH FLOW Cycle

The data flow cycle describes the path data takes from when it’s first generated and captured to when it’s interpreted into actionable insights and its eventual archival and/or deletion at the end of its useful life.

This life cycle can be split into eight steps: generation, collection, processing, storage, management, analysis, visualization, and interpretation.

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The cash flow cycle is the movement of money into and out of business; it's the cycle of cash inflows and cash outflows that determine the business's solvency.

Companies need cash to pay workers, pay suppliers, repay debts, innovate, invest and expand. Whether a business survives, thrives, or fails can be dependent on cash flow management.

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Data Science vs Data Analytics

If cash flow is the consequence of data flow in the digital economy, then businesses should focus and invest in data management skills and technology as one of the key competitive advantages.

The volume of data that business has to deal with has exploded to unimaginable levels in the past decade, and at the same time, the price of data storage has systematically reduced. The challenge of this era is to make sense of the sea of data.

CFO Playbook: From digital to ESG strategy integration
CFOs, as co-pilots of CEOs, are always the catalysts to drive business transformation and align visions and strategies across the entire organization.

In the world of data, we are likely to encounter these two terms: “data science” and “data analytics.” While these terms are related, they refer to different things. Here is a very brief description of each term in the context of a business organization.

  • Data science is the process of building, cleaning, and structuring datasets to analyze and extract meaning.
  • Data analytics is the process and practice of analyzing data to answer questions, extract insights, and identify trends.

These topics will not be covered in detail in this article. A dedicated article is needed to describe in-depth data science and data analytics.

Summary

𝗖𝗔𝗦𝗛 𝗶𝘀 𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗔 𝗶𝘀 𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗘𝗡.

By monetizing the financial value of 𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗔, an organization gains a competitive advantage to generate sustained profitable growth and ultimately 𝗖𝗔𝗦𝗛.

Business is dynamic, not static. 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙘 𝘾𝙖𝙨𝙝 (𝙄𝙙𝙡𝙚 𝘾𝙖𝙨𝙝) is not KING and 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙘 𝘿𝙖𝙩𝙖 (𝙃𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝘿𝙖𝙩𝙖) is not QUEEN. Just like 𝕆𝕩𝕪𝕘𝕖𝕟 and 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕕 need to circulate and flow in the body ecosystem, 𝔻𝕒𝕥𝕒 and ℂ𝕒𝕤𝕙 need to circulate and flow in the business ecosystem.

𝗖𝗔𝗦𝗛 𝗙𝗟𝗢𝗪 𝗶𝘀 𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 and 𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗔 𝗙𝗟𝗢𝗪 𝗶𝘀 𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗘𝗡.

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