Information is exploding at such a rapid rate that it has become difficult to harness effectively to gain smarter business outcomes, says Ludger Helm, IBM enterprise content management (ECM) software sales specialist.
“An information agenda and ECM can help organisations effectively address information management and allow businesses to leverage the power of information as a strategic asset,” he notes.
ECM and information agenda provide an entry point to realising the vision of information on demand - information when it is needed, where it is needed, and accessible by the people who need it, he says.
“Information agenda provides a proven industry-based approach and assets to build the strategy and roadmap,” Helm adds. He says ECM provides a single, integrated solution for managing all unstructured data in context of business processes and helping organisations achieve smarter business outcomes.
“ECM allows the management of any type of electronic content as well as paper-based documents,” he adds.
According to Helm, organisations are beginning to realise that key differentiators and competitive advantages are contained within business processes. “It is necessary to harness tools such as information agenda and ECM to optimise these business processes.”
Down to business
The starting point to addressing the challenges of information management is the ability to manage data over its life cycle, says Helm. “This involves handling all structured data that resides within databases with a robust, scalable and flexible infrastructure.” With this, structured data will be kept safe, secure and accessible, and be retained for as long as necessary for regulatory compliance requirements.
The next step is to optimise content, process and compliance management to provide a streamlined solution for managing all unstructured content, he advises. “In order to manage this effectively, it is necessary to have an integrated solution to manage unstructured content in the context of business processes, and be able to leverage it for compliance needs.”
As the foundation for structured and unstructured data is built, it is necessary to integrate this data from multiple repositories, Helm advises.
Finally, he says, optimising business performance allows organisations to gain meaningful insights from this information, so critical decisions that drive smarter outcomes can be made.
“This puts planning capabilities; measuring and monitoring; and reporting and analysis capabilities into the hands of the business users throughout an organisation, so the answers to the questions that drive performance can be found.”
According to Helm, by leveraging information for smarter business outcomes, business processes can become strategic assets and competitive weapons. “Organisations employing the information-on-demand strategy are able to unlock the business value of information and optimise business performance,” he concludes.
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