Leveraging Information for Innovation and Competitive Advantage

Leveraging Information for Innovation and
Competitive Advantage
Judith Hurwitz, President & CEO
Marcia Kaufman, Partner
A Hurwitz white Paper© Copyright 2007, Hurwitz & Associates
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Hurwitz & Associates is the sole copyright owner of this publication.
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Hurwitz White Paper Leveraging Information for Innovation and Competitive Advantage
IntroductionThis paper provides an overview of what is required to create an environment to leverage information dynamically for innovation and competitive advantage. Organizations that understand the strategic benefit of this approach can dramatically improve business results and introduce innovations that change the business. In fact, according to an IBM survey of CFOs, " [organizations] with highly effective delivery of performance insight, growth insight and risk insight have higher revenue growth and are driving more value creation than their industry peers with less effective insight delivery." However, to truly leverage information organizations must modify their traditional view of their information assets and their overall information architecture in three ways:
Think differently about information. Information is not just stored in your customer databases, file systems, content management systems or applications (e.g., ERP, CRM, and SCM). Information resides in many different repositories including custom applications, e-mails, digital images and reports. You need to make sure you are leveraging all your relevant information no matter where it originated, no matter what its format, and no matter where it resides to help your organization innovate, compete, provide service and grow. You need to understand the value of your information and to recognize and act on the importance of information quality.
Think differently about what it means to have a business solution. A business solution for information is a set of best practices that works in concert with your information infrastructure. A business solution is modular and flexible and can be adapted to changing business events. This modularity enables a loosening of the tight linkages between relevant information and applications. In addition, when metadata - definitions, mappings, and other characteristics describing how to find, access, and use data or content - is maintained in a unified way, the information becomes more modular. In essence, relevant information becomes available as a service that can be delivered in a repeatable, consistent and trusted way across the business.
Think differently about your overall IT environment. Your server platforms, storage systems, process platform, system management and security systems provide the foundation for a resilient information infrastructure. Your underlying IT infrastructure must support the organization's need to access clean and accurate information with appropriate availability, performance, cost-effectiveness and governance to drive efficiency. The infrastructure should also extend the scope of information visibility, so that blinders are removed and views are comprehensive.Some innovative organizations already are deploying solutions based on these new approaches. Indeed, they are enjoying significant benefits and are the source
Hurwitz White Paper  Leveraging Information for Innovation and Competitive Advantage
of new best practices that other organizations can follow and refine as they address their own Raising Workforce Productivity information challenges. IBM calls this approach A regional electric utility needed to Information On Demand - defined as leveraging improve communications between information to optimize business processes, the field and home office for its applications and productivity. mobile workforce. Unstructured information such as location maps, and The Role of Enterprise Information structured information such as contract Organizations ha... [download for more]