Information is power. In today‘s data-driven business environment, effectively managing information assets provides organizations with significant competitive advantage. However, with data volumes exploding and information scattered across siloed systems, making the most of corporate information remains a key challenge.
This article provides 8 compelling examples that demonstrate the critical role of information management in tackling this challenge. We will cover key information management capabilities including:
- Data governance
- Master data management
- Metadata management
- Business intelligence and analytics
- Content management
- Records management
- Enterprise search
- Information security
For each area, we will define the key concepts, discuss real-world use cases, outline business benefits, highlight adoption trends, and provide leading technology solution examples. Let‘s dive in.
1. Data Governance: The Foundation for Trusted Information
Data governance refers to the strategies, policies, standards, processes, and technologies required to manage and ensure the availability, usability, integrity, and security of information across an organization.
For example, a global bank implemented a data governance program to enhance regulatory compliance, reduce errors, and improve analytics. Key activities included:
- Documenting data lineage across systems
- Establishing data stewards and ownership
- Defining policies for data quality, metadata standards etc.
- Implementing monitoring to identify data issues
This improved data transparency and accelerated decision making by establishing trust in underlying information. According to IDC, organizations invest $1 in data governance to yield $9 in business benefits. Leading technology solutions include Collibra, Informatica, and IBM InfoSphere.
2. Master Data Management: A Single Source of Truth
Master data management (MDM) consolidates core business entities like customers, products, suppliers into a "golden record" that delivers a single source of truth across the organization.
For instance, a retailer implemented MDM to achieve a 360-degree customer view by integrating loyalty program data with e-commerce and in-store transactions. This boosted sales by better targeting promotions based on purchase history. Leading MDM solutions include Informatica, Oracle, SAP MDG, and Tibco EBX.
3. Metadata Management: Improving Findability and Usability
Metadata refers to "data about data" – definitions and attributes that describe the structure, content, and context of information assets. Effective metadata management is crucial for organizations to successfully find, understand, trust, and use data.
A healthcare provider leveraged metadata to catalog meanings, owners, lineage etc. for their clinical data dictionary. This accelerated analytics and reduced errors by promoting shared data understanding for researchers and clinicians. Top metadata management software includes Alation, Atlan, Collibra Catalog, and Informatica Axon.
4. Business Intelligence and Analytics: Converting Data to Decisions
Business intelligence (BI) and analytics solutions collect, store, analyze, and visualize data to uncover trends, derive insights, and enable data-driven decisions.
For example, a services firm built a customer churn analytics model by integrating BI on subscription data from billing systems with external demographic data. Identifying upsell opportunities reduced churn by 10%. Leading BI platforms include Microsoft Power BI, Qlik, SageMaker Studio, and Tableau.
5. Content Management: Unlocking Unstructured Information
Content management tools classify, organize, secure, distribute and enable discovery of unstructured information like documents, images, videos, and web content.
A manufacturing company digitized equipment manuals and drawings into a cloud content management system. This enabled mobile field techs to efficiently find repair procedures onsite, cutting maintenance times by 20%. Top content management solutions include Box, Dropbox, Microsoft Sharepoint, and OpenText.
6. Records Management: Achieving Compliance and Security
Records management ensures regulated content like contracts, communications, HR files is retained, archived, and disposed of properly per policy and legal requirements.
A financial advisor manages 10 years of client trade confirmations in a secure, searchable records management system that complies with SEC auditability rules and data privacy regulations. Leading records management software includes Intland Software, Micro Focus Content Manager, and OpenText.
7. Enterprise Search: Harnessing Corporate Knowledge
Enterprise search leverages AI and metadata to provide users with relevant results across all corporate information sources like file shares, databases, websites, and apps from one unified interface.
An engineering firm crawl employee collaboration sites, CAD repositories and document management to allow project teams to quickly locate prior designs and expertise to solve current challenges. Top enterprise search tools include Coveo, Elasticsearch, and Microsoft Search.
8. Information Security: Safeguarding Critical Information
Information security protects confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data through controls like access management, encryption, data loss prevention (DLP), and analytics.
A hospital implements fine-grained access policies to patient health records, ensuring medical staff sees only data required for their role. Activity monitoring detects inappropriate EHR record access for investigation. Leading data security platforms include Forcepoint, Netskope, Proofpoint, and Zscaler.
Architecting Information Advantage
As demonstrated by these examples, integrated information management capabilities enable organizations to gain value from their ever-expanding information assets. An enterprise information strategy brings these key elements together into a cohesive architecture.
Core components of this blueprint include an information governance program, shared metadata layer, flexible data architecture, search and analytics fabric, and comprehensive security model. With CIO leadership, organizations can architect information advantage and turn corporate data into an asset for innovation and results.
