The Importance of an Information Strategy

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The importance of an Information Strategy
A White Paper by Bloor ResearchAuthor : Philip HowardPublish date : December 2008The idea of an Information Strategy will be critical to your business success and the key to sustaining your competitive advantage over time. IBM's Information Agenda has been specifically designed to help.Philip HowardThe importance of an Information Strategy page 1
Executive summary
Since its inception, IT has focused on reducing costs through process automation and the implementation of applications. However, that is no longer enough to sustain competitive advantage in a rapidly changing world. Today, important business decisions depend on having up-to-date, trustworthy information. At the same time, you need to assess the internal and external risks involved in such decisions. This is not easy, which is why organisations need to build an Information Strategy to guide them towards a coherent, integrated environment for managing and delivering information in support of their business goals. Such a strategy involves not just software but a broader spectrum of concerns. Focus on information as a corporate asset is required to support key business aims. We need to move away from the current environment in which data is treated as separate from (and subservient to) applications and business process-which may require a cultural shift within the IT department. To illustrate the importance of an Information Strategy imagine:
. That you know where all of your corporate data resides. . That you know, based on previous actions and conditions, what the next best action to take is.. That you could trust all of your data to be accurate, complete and up-to-date so that you could rely on it when . That you know that you were fully compliant with all you make business decisions. legislative and governance requirements.
. That you could access any piece of information, or . That your data and content is stored in the most efficient combination of pieces, at any time, to support decision and cost effective manner fit for purpose.making and understand risk. . That .. That your data was protected and secure at all times. An impossible dream? Perhaps. However, progress towards . That whenever you needed to make a business decision these goals is critical to supporting business strategy.that you fully understood all the risks involved.
© 2008 Bloor Research A Bloor White PaperThe importance of an Information Strategy page 2
What an Information Strategy is
In this paper we will discuss what an Information Strategy Simplifyis, why it is important, and what it takes to build one. We In general, the key to any complex problem is to simplify it will also consider IBM's Information Agenda, that as much as possible. In the case of an Information Strategy company's approach to assisting in the development of an we have a natural tendency to conflate multiple issues. Take Information Strategy. the example of Master Data Management (MDM). You might well think of MDM and data quality in the same breath and, An Information Strategy is a holistic approach to indeed, they are closely linked. However, they are not the information management that best supports the goals and same: MDM is, literally, about the management of strategies of the business. This is not a one-size-fits-all organisational reference data whereas data quality is environment: companies will start in different places with (amongst other things) about ensuring that master data is fit different capabilities and different priorities. Goals may not for purpose and of a high standard. Clearly it would make be identical (for example, different industries have different little sense to have MDM without data quality but it might regulations that may mandate somewhat different make plenty of sense to have data quality without MDM. strategies). Moreover, there is no end point: information Even where this is not the case then at least a significant coherence will always be a moving target as regulations part of the value in an MDM implementation derives directly and requirements change and new varieties of information from the fact of having high quality data. Moreover, it is this are embraced. aspect of any such project that is likely to product the fastest time to value. So, the message is to logicall... [download for more]