One of the most complex challenges facing organisations today is leveraging all the information which is crucial for optimising business. According to Michael Eden, software sales manager at IBM Software Group, the key task is to create “trusted” information.
Eden's starting point is the difficulty of managing the vast streams of information that flow in and out of a typical business. As he notes: “The sheer volume of information and the variety of different information types businesses have to deal with is continuously growing at an exponential rate.”
At the same time, he points out, the velocity and speed of doing business in today's market is driving the need for real-time access to and use of information. One effect of these challenges, says Eden, is that information typically remains locked in various 'silos' across the organisation.
As a result, information is not “trusted” within organisations, so managers often miss vital data that should be available to help them make critical business decisions.
Eden points out that using bad data as a strategic asset is simply not an option. “The bottom line is that having access to trusted information is what enables innovation and smarter decision-making.”
Only if an organisation's IT department can deliver accurate and complete information in context for a business user, Eden argues, can the user make the right analysis to draw out true business insights.
Best remedy
An “information agenda”, says Eden, can help address these challenges and deliver trusted information throughout the enterprise.
Creating an effective information agenda involves discovering what data is spread across the enterprise and how it is related, designing trusted information structures to leverage data for business optimisation, and managing information over its life cycle using a repeatable process.
According to Eden, the basic toolkit of the information agenda includes business intelligence applications, data warehouses, master data management, application consolidation, new application roll-out, and information architecture.
These help profile, model, define, map and govern all the information that is spread across an enterprise, he explains. “The result is that businesses will be able to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time.”
The benefits of such an approach, says Eden, include increased operational efficiency, streamlined processes that eliminate duplication and promote team collaboration, decreasing time to market, and improved responsiveness to customer demand.
“Another important requirement is the need to integrate information from across heterogeneous systems,” he points out. This requires understanding source data, applying data quality, and using a variety of ways to deliver information.
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