Adapted from Information-Driven Business: How to Manage Data and Information for Maximum Advantage, by Robert Hillard. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
Everyone recognizes the need to get more value from their information assets. The following are eight things for an Information-Driven Business to consider:
8 Things About an Information-Driven Business
1 -- Develop an Information Governance Charter.
Such a charter needs to be embraced by the board or its equivalent and have a set of principles that are aligned to the strategic goals of the organization and recognising the structural tensions that exist in every business.
2 -- Establish Fact-Based Decision Making.
An important information principle is that the information asset should be leveraged every day in every decision. Both strategic and operational decisions should be based on facts that can be sourced back to data that is held by the enterprise.
3 -- All Data Should be Integrated with Consistent Definitions.
Accepting that an organization’s major asset is information, there is no value in each unit of the enterprise being part of the whole unless it is able to leverage that enterprise asset in an integrated and synergistic way (i.e., the whole is greater than the sum of parts).
4 -- Retain Appropriate Detailed Data.
Information should be retained whenever physically possible within the constraints of government legislation, corporate ethics and privacy commitments.
5 -- Measure the Quality of Data.
Data quality is relative to the purpose to which it is to be applied. Decision makers not only need access to data, but more importantly they also need to understand the timing, reconciliation, completeness and accuracy of that data. Data quality is neither abstract nor qualitative, rather it should be measured in absolute terms.
6 -- Provide Appropriate Enterprise Access.
Staff are a valued and trusted resource to the company. By default, every member of staff can be trusted to handle information appropriately and sensitively. The default position is that a staff member can access information unless there is a specific commercial, legal or ethical reason why the information should not be made available to this individual.
7 -- Every Data Item has one Person or Role as Ultimate Custodian.
Every item of data requires unique and ultimate ownership by a single role and person. This does not imply that all customers, products or other items of data maintain common ownership, rather it means that a matrix of responsibilities should be managed which ensures that issues or conflicts always have an ultimate point of escalation.
8 -- Establish Measures of Information Governance Success.
The principles of information governance should become Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with project budgets being structured to include an element expressed in terms of information goals.
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Robert Hillard is the author of Information-Driven Business (www.infodrivenbusiness.com) and was one of the original founders of MIKE2.0 which provides a standard approach for Information and Data Management projects. Robert has held international consulting leadership roles and provided advice to government and private sector clients around the world. He is a Partner with Deloitte in Australia with more than twenty years experience in the discipline, focusing on standardised approaches to Information Management including being one of the first to use XBRL in government regulation and the promotion of information as a business asset rather than a technology problem.
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