Information is like electricity. We only appreciate it when it's not available.

Our dependence on data is ever increasing and there are no signs that it will slow down anytime soon; we rely on data now more than ever.

A simple test: without looking at your phone, try to recall your mum's phone number or your partner's mobile. You can't remember them off the top of your head? Why is that? Because you don't need to; you have your phone with you almost all of the time.

Consider a large organization such as a hospital: How much do they rely on data?

Ten years ago, if a hospital experienced an IT outage, it was no big deal. The clerical staff would go into the back room and pull out your file.

Everything that was in the computer system was also in your file, and on top of that, the file was more up to date than the computer because the clerical staff was using the file as the 'source of truth.'

Entering data into the PC was just another task mandated from the top; notes and critical information still resided in the file.

Today there are so many files that you can't keep them in the back room. There is not enough space at the clerical desk. The files are stored somewhere in the basement, offsite, or they don't exist at all.

PCs are faster, cheaper and capable of more than what a simple folder filing system can achieve. They can capture and organize information better than a folder filing system can. Slowly, the dependence on the file was broken down.

However, there is one problem. To paraphrase the old adage, 'those who live by the network, die by the network.' If there is an IT outage, processes come to a standstill. There is chaos. Departments can't get patient information. Test results are not propagated. Everyone depends on their PC. There is no backup folder system.

With data so critically important, is it a safe assumption to say organizations have a strategy to manage this data? That they have defined what data is relevant, how long to keep it and what to do in case of downtime?

The reality is that this is not the case. Most organization's data management strategy comes down to something like this: "Shove it on a hard drive and deal with it later. We'll deal with it when we need it – if we need it – but fingers crossed that we don't cross that bridge anytime soon."

Hope is not a strategy. Data on a hard drive is of little use if it’s not organized. To organize, you need a plan.

Imagine ten years from now, how much more data we will be relying on. How many mountains of data will sit in a corner somewhere?

Organizations need a data strategy to utilize the massive amounts of data at their disposal. At the very least, the data needs to be in a format so it can be mined for useful information such as forecasting future trends based on historical data, predicting resource utilization, or identifying growth sectors.

Without a data strategy, data stored digitally is no more efficient than a folder filing system if all we’re doing is replacing the folder with a hard drive.

- Kiran Busi is currently working as a consultant for Data Agility in the Information Management workspace specialising in the integration domain.

Dependence on Data by Kiran Busi - Data Agility