Even if management receives regular dashboard reports on the metrics that are considered most important, it’s likely your company is stocking away data without getting much, if any, value out of it.
“We’re seeing a massive explosion in the amount of digitally created and held data on companies’ information systems,” says Paul Nannetti, Paris based leader of the Business Information Management global service line at Capgemini, the information-technology consultancy.
“Much is created on each company’s own IT systems,” Mr. Nannetti says, “but some also comes from external sources like suppliers, partners and traffic from external Web sites. The data may be need to be stored for financial compliance, audit and other reasons. To that extent, it’s a burden. But if it can be translated into actionable insights, it can create a competitive advantage.”
And business information management is the process of turning data into a valuable asset.
Mr. Nannetti offers an example of one client, a midsize bank that had grown through a number of acquisitions. It wanted to offer a newly broadened portfolio of products and services to its large customer base, but the records of its several million customers were fragmented among the acquired banks, making it impossible to cross-sell products. The bank undertook an $80 million business information management program to enable a single and consistent view of each customer’s activities. The effort included a data governance program, the establishment of rules and procedures for collecting, processing and cleansing data to rid it of errors and duplications.
Legacy Systems
At other companies, legacy enterprise resource planning systems needed to be upgraded. Lawson Products Inc., of Des Plaines, Ill., wanted to replace its homegrown ERP system. The industrial distributor of maintenance and repair supplies realized it had to clean up its data to get value out of the new system, and blended a business information management program in its ERP upgrade.
“We identified early in our ERP program the necessity of pulling our disparate data together into a single version of the truth, and, moving forward, to treat our information as an asset of the company,” says Bob Border, senior vice president, chief information officer at Lawson. The company chose Capgemini to lead its business information management initiative.
Better Service
The business information management project was a key component to Lawson’s initiatives designed to better serve their customers. The company’s forward-looking focus is in tune with companies in many industries, and business information management has evolved as well, from reporting to forecasting.
“Its was not long ago that the majority of business information management projects looked backward in time – reporting on sales for the last month or last quarter,” says Jeffrey Deyerle, vice president and leader of the Business Information Management service line for North America at Capgemini in New York. “Today, we are more focused on collecting and analyzing data for forward-looking purposes – optimizing business processes or finding our best customers, anticipating and influencing behaviors.”
All organizations have processes to manage their information in at least a rudimentary manner, Capgemini’s Mr. Nannetti says. “But how many really manage information as an asset, with a view to driving competitive advantage? In our experience, information management as a discipline is a continuous journey, and if placed at the heart of the overall business strategy, it can be instrumental in setting an organization apart from its competitors.