Business Information Management
Business Information Management (BIM) is our methodology for harmonising the business processes and practices that underpin the creation, use and preservation of quality information, regardless of the technology employed.
Industry specialists estimate that organisations lose between 10% and 25% of revenue as a result of poor quality information. How do companies address this issue? Many believe that poor information quality is solely a technology issue. They endorse technology projects, such as content or document management systems, data warehouses and BI applications, to solve information needs without considering the dynamics of changing information requirements and business priorities. Consequently, these project-based solutions have a poor track record for success. The Standish Group quotes a project success rate of only 34%.
To address this issue, we must first understand that the root causes of information quality problems are predominately business issues and not technology related. These business issues include:
- misalignment of business processes;
- poorly defined information needs;
- poorly communicated business requirements;
- lack of clearly defined accountabilities for information management;
- conflicting incentives;
- lack of appropriate education.
Secondly, we must take a close look how and when we determine our information needs. Organisations may agree that elegant product design is an important part of realising good customer experience, but do they understand that true elegant design must incorporate the information needs of the organisation. This is a crucial part of the product development process. Too often this process neglects the information needs of those who measure the bottom line and, more importantly, those that measure and affect the customers' experience.
Why are these information needs neglected or not realised? There are two main hurdles and both of these drive the need for information to become secondary to the market delivery imperative:
- Slow information system development life cycle — for example, whilst the go-to-market process is rapid (weeks), data warehouse release schedules are often too slow (months, or even years). Addressing this requires a paradigm shift in the way that information is managed.
- Ambiguous and unrecognised information needs — without understanding the whole product life-cycle process in terms of information requirements, it is unlikely that deficiencies will be anticipated and addressed. Addressing this requires an internal and empirical approach.
Information needs must be managed. This requires business processes and appropriate accountabilities to be established. Intraversed has a unique approach that will show you how to manage your information needs and overcome these hurdles. We call this approach Business Information Management. Our approach:
- recognises business imperatives;
- results in the improved accuracy and delivery of your key business information;
- maximises the business value of your data warehouses and BI applications;
- facilitates knowledge retention.
