Treat data and information as you would any critical business asset: measure, document and manage essential attributes such as value, risk and cost.

Manufacturers depend on information and analytics to help them deal with the complexity caused by global operations, value chains and market. Most recognise that there is tremendous opportunity to use, analyse and apply information all across the business.

However, they need to do a better job capitalising on the information that is, and will become, available to them.

Manufacturers must evolve from a classic data management approach to one that leverages information and knowledge as critical business assets. This can be achieved by embedding intelligence in operations and delivery, while still maintaining existing quality, data governance and data management practices.

But these practices must evolve to meet the requirements both of the legacy environment and of the digital business under construction. Information transformation is a huge and critical challenge for many.

IDC estimates that by 2020, the digital universe will reach 44ZB, or 44 trillion gigabytes, of data — a tenfold increase over that in 2013, with 40% growth per year. To make matters worse, IDC estimates that 22% of the information in the digital universe was usable for analysis in 2013; however, less than 5% of that usable information was analysed. These numbers need to change for manufacturers.

Although most manufacturers have aggregated and analysed much of their transactional data, many see value in other data types and sources, such as machine — or sensor-generated data, GPS data, text, rich media (image, voice and video), and consumer sentiment from e-commerce sites and social networks.

Want to learn more about how companies are utilising data and advanced analytics to help ‘optimize’ their supply chains?

Register for the upcoming webinar on June 15, titled: Supply Chain Optimization: What Leading Manufacturers Are Doing Differently, brought to you by The Manufacturer magazine and sponsored by FICO.

Click here to register.