Enterprise Information Management: Aligning Business Strategy and IT
Middle-where?
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Where does your middle actually start? Where is your data stored? How do people want to receive the information they're relying upon to make decisions? How do you effectively bridge the gap between your data and your business requirements? Have you segmented your end users? For example, who are the analysts who need deep analytical tools and who are the managers who need summary level information? How are they getting the information they need today -- via Excel, a report, or a dashboard?
Determining what business users require and what they're using today is critical when embarking on an EIM initiative. Knowing what's already in place through a tools-and-skills audit will help companies see exactly what they're up against and allow development of a long-term vision and plan to reach their performance management goals. Knowing where to focus first (which department, which geography, which level) also will help earn some early wins and establish credibility as the performance management dashboards and scorecards are rolled out to users. Meanwhile, continually test and refine the approach; start small, but always think big -- focusing on the bottom, the top, and the middle.
Middle-when?
When it comes to information management, or EIM, don't wait to get started. John D. Rockefeller once said, "He who has the most information, wins." However, that does not mean simply pouring more resources into new tools. It means that companies should take a step back and ask themselves why everyone is suddenly talking about middleware and infrastructure.
An EIM strategy that is directly tied to BI and performance management initiatives will help to ensure that system design takes place before system development. It's not enough to want to improve operational performance; you must have a strategy to achieve it. An EIM strategy will help companies begin with the end in mind and enable the implementation of a solution based on the unique information access and analysis requirements of the organization's entire business user community. But don't think of EIM as just an IT initiative. When it comes to broadening the reach and usefulness of information, keep in mind that just because you have the information, it doesn't mean people will use it. Business sponsorship will be needed to develop the strategy, determine the funding, and keep the project on track. Results must be measured, and early successes must be evangelized to build momentum for the enterprise initiative.
Middle-who?
The key to the right infrastructure and a comprehensive EIM strategy is both data neutrality and data proximity. Ensure that vendors are able to take advantage of your organization's transactional systems but not be inherently tied to them in terms of key features and benefits. From the performance management, business intelligence, data integration, and data quality perspectives, it is critical to choose best-of-breed components that are tightly integrated.
But few vendors can claim to deliver all of these things in an integrated way, so do your homework. Talk to vendors about the depth and breadth of both their products and service offerings, and seek to establish the elusive "trusted adviser" relationship with a select few.
Today's organizations are much less a series of operational efforts and much more a fabric of tightly woven, interdependent operational centers. Adopting the old real estate mantra for organizations today, it's "alignment, alignment, alignment." Of course, the main motivational drivers are business ones. In the final analysis, there are no problems unless they are business problems, and there are no solutions unless they solve a business problem.
Keeping Focused on KPIsThe decision in an organization to embrace the BPM process should mean that the organization doesn't simply use a particular key performance indicator, or KPI -- it chooses to pursue it, define it, and understand it. A person may decide that holding a wet finger in the wind is a valuable indicator for weather prediction and be content with the results. The beauty is that such a person always will know where his indicator came from. We sometimes do ourselves a disfavor by using the term "KPI". The emphasis on that first word -- key -- imposes a high level of diligence, accuracy and completeness. In today's organization the KPI jewels are buried in your data, and it will take diligence, effort, and skills that span multiple layers, locations, and departments to uncover them. And that's just to do it once. Assuming a desire for the ongoing presentation of valid KPIs, you must integrate your BPM plan with a supporting EIM/BI plan. You can choose to limit your KPIs to the data that you have already collected or decide to collect more data. In either case, turning the data into information -- reliable, complete, and accessible information -- is not magic. It is the result of careful planning and hard work. Where do you begin? Here are a few ideas: • The business stakeholders or BPM project leaders should work with the IT department to ensure understanding of the levels of accuracy, reliability, completeness, and accessibility that are required of KPI information. •IT must formulate a sustainable plan to deliver against this set of requirements. • Start with an assessment or gap analysis to identify the delta between the current level of data quality and the desired future state. This assessment is best performed by an external organization whose experience will guarantee the quality of the assessment. • Include in your plan the establishment of an environment of data quality that leverages the use of tools, processes, and reiterative assessments to assure and measure its effectiveness. Again, consider engaging expert outside help. |
The authors would like to acknowledge Darren Cunningham for his contribution to this article.
Steve Wooledge is Director of Performance Management Marketing for Business Objects. He has over 12 years of experience in engineering, sales, and marketing in both manufacturing and high-tech organizations.
