|
As market pressures increase, organizations are looking for ways to harness information as a strategic asset. When treated as such, information becomes a significant competitive differentiator. All too often, however, this information is inconsistent, out of date, incomplete or simply not available when and where it is needed most. The effects of this information misalignment can be felt throughout the organization in rising costs, inefficiencies and missed opportunities. A lack of trusted information can result in even more dire consequences. New products or business models executed on the basis of faulty information can result in costly failures.
These challenges are not new, but the need to address the problem is more pressing than ever before. Equally important, the ability to overcome these challenges and make timely, trusted information available has never been better.
Open standards (like XML and Web services) and flexible architectures (like Service Oriented Architecture, or SOA) have both matured and gained critical support in the industry to the point where they provide real value in the context of providing trusted information. Technologies such as master data management, information integration and data warehousing are available to deliver the capabilities required to deploy an enterprisewide, integrated software platform. Finally, market-leading companies have begun to deploy effective information agendas based on tried and proven best practices, helping them reduce risk, speed implementation and realize results faster. Organizations that make the creation and delivery of trusted information a priority can be richly rewarded. The potential return on investments includes:
- Extended protection for existing investments in applications, middleware, systems and skills
- Enhanced visibility, control and insight, enabling organizations to optimize their business processes more effectively
- Improved data governance and management of the availability, consistency, integrity and security of data in a manner that meets both regulatory and management requirements
- Extended efficiencies from using information as a set of trusted, reusable services in an SOA
- Enhanced ability to integrate and use unstructured data, such as e-mail, video and documents, and syndicated information from third parties.
Information strategy establishes the principles which will guide the organization’s efforts to create and exploit trusted information. The information strategy provides an end-to-end vision for all components of the information agenda, and is driven by an organization’s business strategy and operating framework. The information strategy should be revisited regularly to ensure it stays aligned with the organization’s business strategy.
Effective information governance can enhance the quality, availability and integrity of a company’s information by fostering cross-organizational collaboration and policymaking. This requires the establishment of a specific corporate organization whose mission is to define the policies and practices for managing and protecting critical information assets over their lifecycle. The core objectives of information governance include:
- Defining governance infrastructure and technology
- Establishing common and standard information domain definitions
- Defining ongoing governance processes
- Developing architecture practices and standards
- Monitoring and ongoing improvement of data quality
- Identifying and training key business sponsors, governors, stewards and executives of high-priority business areas
- Establishing the necessary organizational policies and cross-organizational oversight
- Training and enabling all affected staff.
Although it is sometimes challenging for the CIO and line-of-business managers to work together to establish information governance standards, the importance of this component of the information agenda should not be underestimated. Robust information governance is necessary for an organization to comply with external regulations more quickly and more completely. Information governance can help unlock the financial advantages that are driven by improved data quality, management processes and accountability. Business performance can also be improved as a result of information governance — via common definitions and processes that drive effective strategy development, execution, tracking and management.
In order to manage information as a strategic asset over time, companies must commit to an enterprise-level information infrastructure. Anything less results in significant operational inefficiencies, unacceptable turnaround on projects and the continued proliferation of multiple copies of data and content. Within the context of an information agenda, an enterprise information infrastructure framework identifies the technology required to integrate current investments with future technologies, helping to optimize return on investment.
|
