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Additional notes from text book--------sentences highlighted in red color might be useful for case study

Information management is an idea whose time has come for a number of reasons. One focus group member explained it in this way:

In today’s business environment, it is a given that we must know who our customer is and ensure our organization’s information enables us to make the right business decisions. As well, emerging regulations are starting to shape the IM requirements of all companies. These include privacy and security safeguards on customer information, long-term storage of historical records, and stronger auditability. We are now being held legally accountable for our information.

Thus, IM has three distinct but related drivers: (1) compliance, (2) operational effectiveness and efficiency, and (3) strategy. Information, as we are now recognizing, is a key organizational resource, along with human and financial capital. Captured and used in the right way, many believe information is a different form of capital, known as structural capital (Stewart 1999). However, unlike human and financial capital, information is not finite. It cannot be used up, nor can it walk out the door. Furthermore, information capabilities—that is, the ability to capture, organize, use, and maintain information—have been shown to contribute to IT effectiveness, individual effectiveness, and overall business performance (Kettinger and Marchand 2005; Marchand et al. 2000; Perez-Lopez and Alegre 2012). Therefore, many companies now believe that creating useful structural capital is a strategic priority (IBM 2012; Kettinger and Marchand 2005). Unlike information technology, which provides the technology, tools, and processes with which to capture, store, and manipulate data, or knowledge management (KM), which focuses on how best to leverage the know-how and intangible experience of the organization’s human capital, IM provides the mechanisms for managing enterprise information itself. IM represents the “meat” in the data–information–knowledge continuum and provides a foundation that can be used by both IT and KM to create business value (see Figure 11.1). As noted earlier, organizations today are beset with demands for more and better information and more controls over it. IM is the means to get above the fray and clarify how the enterprise will manage information as an integrated resource. In theory, it covers all forms of information needed and produced by the business, both structured and unstructured, including the following:

• Customer information • Financial information • Operational information • Product information • HR information • Documents • E-mail and instant messages • Customer feedback • Images and multimedia materials • Business intelligence • Relationship information (e.g., suppliers, partners) • Information about physical objects (i.e., the internet of things) • Externally generated information (e.g., government records, weather information) • Geolocation

information In practice, some of these forms will be more thoroughly managed than others, depending on the organization involved. The “IM function” is also responsible for the complete information life cycle: acquisition or creation, organization, navigation, access, security, administration, storage, and retention. Because IM falls into the gray area between the business and IT and is not yet a separate organizational entity, many organizations are finding it is essential to develop an enterprisewide framework that clarifies the policies, principles, roles, responsibilities and accountabilities, and practices for IM in both groups. Because much information use crosses traditional functional boundaries, organizations must take an enterprise perspective on IM for it to be effective. A framework for implementing IM involves several stages that move from general principles to specific applications. Although these are presented as distinct activities, in practice they will likely evolve iteratively as the organization and its management learn by doing. For example, one company developed and implemented its privacy policy first then recognized the need for an information security policy. As this was being implemented, it created a more generic IM policy that incorporated the other two in its principles.

stage one: Develop an Im Policy A policy outlines the terms of reference for making decisions about information. It provides the basis for corporate directives and for developing the processes, standards, and guidelines needed to manage information assets well throughout the enterprise. Because information is a corporate asset, an IM policy needs to be established at a very senior management level and approved by the board of directors. This policy should provide guidance for more detailed directives on accountabilities, quality, security, privacy, risk tolerances, and prioritization of effort. Because of the number of business functions affected by information, a draft policy should be developed by a multidisciplinary team. At minimum, IT, the privacy office, legal, HR, corporate audit, and key lines of business should be involved. “We had lots of support for this from our audit people,” said one manager. “They recognize that an IM policy will help improve the traceability of information and its transformations, and this makes their jobs easier.” Another recommended reviewing the draft policy with many executives and ensuring that all business partners are identified. “Ideally, the policy should also link to existing IM processes such as security classifications,” stated another. “It’s less threatening if people are familiar with what it implies, and this also helps identify gaps in practices that need to be addressed.”

stage two: articulate the operational Components The operational components describe what needs to be in place in order to put the corporate IM policy into practice across the organization (see Figure 11.2). In turn, each component will have several “elements.” These could vary according to what different organizations deem important. For example, the strategy component at one company has six elements: (1) interacting with the external environment, (2) strategic planning, (3) information life cycle, (4) general planning, (5) program integration, and (6) performance monitoring (for a description of the elements identified by this firm, see Appendix A). Together, the operational components act as a context to describe current IM practices in the organization and reference existing best practices in each area. “This is a living document, and you should expect it to be continually refined,” noted a focus group member. The IM framework’s operational components and individual elements act as a discussion document to position IM in the business and to illustrate its breadth and scope. “There’s a danger of IM being perceived as a ‘technology thing,’” stated a manager. Although it is often IT groups that spearhead the IM effort, they recognize that it shouldn’t necessarily be located in IT permanently. “Ideally, we need a corporate information office that cuts across lines of business and corporate groups, just like IT,” said another manager.

stage three: establish Information stewardship Many roles and responsibilities associated with IM need to be clearly articulated. These are especially important to clarify because of the boundary-spanning nature of information. Both political and practical issues arise when certain questions are asked: Who is responsible for the quality of our customer data? Whose version of name and address do we use? Who must sign off on the accuracy of our financial information? Ideally, most organizations would like to have a single version of each of their key information subjects (e.g., customer, product, employees) that all lines of business and systems would use. This would enable proper protections and controls to be put in place. And this is clearly a long-term IM goal for most. However, legacy environments, politics, and tight budgets mean that the reality is somewhat less perfect with duplicate versions of the same information and several variants being used by parts of the business. Information stewards are businesspeople. They should be responsible for determining the meaning of information “chunks” (e.g., customer name and address) and their business rules and contextual use. They should be responsible for the accuracy, timeliness, consistency, validity, completeness, and redundancy of information. Stewards also determine who may access information according to privacy and security policies and provide guidance for the retention and deletion of information in accordance with regulatory and legal requirements. In addition, stewards make the information’s characteristics available to a broad audience through the organization’s metadata. Stewardship, like IM, is an evolving role that few understand fully. Ideally, there should be one steward for each key information subject, but this is nowhere near the reality in most organizations. One organization has established a working group for each of its major subjects, with representatives from all affected stakeholder groups as well as IT. The working groups’ goals are to reduce duplicate records, correct information, simplify processes, and close “back doors.” In the longer term, these groups hope to develop standard definitions and a formal stewardship process and ultimately use these to retool IT’s data infrastructure. “We are struggling with this concept,” admitted a manager. “This is not a simple task, and no one in our business wants to take accountability as yet.” Stewardship also takes time, and many business units are not yet prepared to allocate resources to it. “At present, we are hitching our wagons to other projects and hoping to make some progress in this way,” said another manager. “Every area is taking some steps, but they’re all at different levels of maturity. This can be frustrating because progress is so slow.” All agreed that the role of information steward needs to be better defined and incorporated into organizational and HR models. New performance metrics also need to be established to monitor progress against these goals in ways that link IM activities to key business objectives.

stage four: Build Information standards Standards help ensure that quality, accuracy, and control goals can be met. When all parts of an organization follow the same standards, it is relatively easy to simplify the processes and technology that use a piece of information, said the focus group. Conversely, different information standards used by different business groups will inhibit effective IM. Setting information standards can be challenging, and it’s even harder to actually implement them, participants noted. The latter is partly due to the large number of legacy applications in most organizations and also because it is difficult to get funding for this work. Not all information needs to be standardized, however—only that which is used by more than one business unit. When information is used more broadly, a standard needs to be established. A metadata repository is useful for this. This repository stores information definitions; standards for use and change; and provides cross-references for all models, processes, and programs using a particular piece of information. A metadata repository can be jointly used by the business, when beginning a new project, and IT, when developing or modifying applications. It can be invaluable to both groups (and the enterprise) in helping them to understand how their work will affect others, thus preventing potential problems. Typically, cross-functional working groups composed of business and IT staff establish standards. “Metadata is really where the rubber meets the road,” said one manager. “It can be a very powerful tool to prevent the duplication of data in the organization.” However, it is a huge undertaking and takes time to show value. “You need strong IT executive support for this,” he said. “It is not something that those outside of IT initially understand.” The focus group recommended starting with what exists currently (e.g., a data warehouse), then growing from there. One firm initially established a procedure that any changes to production systems had to update the metadata repository first. “We weren’t prepared for the demand this created,” stated the manager involved. “It’s much better to incorporate this step in front-end analysis than at the end of development.” Finally, education and awareness play an essential role at this stage. “We always underestimate the importance of awareness,” said a participant. “We must make sure that no project starts in the organization that doesn’t use standards. The only way to do this is to keep this issue continually in front of our business executives.” The other group members agreed. “Standards are the cornerstone of IM,” said one. “If they are followed, they will ensure we don’t add further layers of complexity and new steps.”

Focus group participants had several recommendations for others wishing to get started in IM:

• Start with what you have. “Doing IM is like trying to solve world hunger,” said one manager. “It just gets bigger and bigger the longer you look at it.” Even just listing all of the information types and locations in the organization can be a daunting task, and the job will probably never be fully complete. The group, therefore, recommended doing an inventory of what practices, processes, standards, groups, and repositories already exist in the organization and trying to grow IM from there. It is most important to get the key information needed to achieve business objectives under control first. For many companies, this may be customer information; for others, it may be product or financial information. “It’s really important to prioritize in IM,” said a manager. “We need to focus on the right information that’s going to have the biggest return.” It may help to try to quantify the value of company information in some way. Despite the fact that there is no accepted accounting method for doing so as yet, some firms are adapting the value assessment methodologies used for other assets. “When you really look at the value of information, it’s worth a staggering amount of money. This really gets senior management attention and support,” noted a focus group member. A top-down approach is ideal, yet it may not always be practical. “It took us over a year to get an information policy in place,” said a participant. “In the meantime, there are significant savings that can be realized by taking a bottom-up approach and cleaning up some of the worst problems.” Harnessing existing compliance efforts around privacy, security, and the other types of regulation is also effective. At minimum, these will affect information architecture, access to data, document retention, and data administration for financial and personal information (Smith and McKeen 2006). “We can take either an opportunity or a fear mindset toward regulation,” said a manager. Companies that see compliance from a purely tactical perspective will likely not see the value of increased controls. If, however, they see regulation as a chance to streamline and revamp business processes and the information they use, their compliance investments will likely pay off. Those interested in IM can also take advantage of the dramatically elevated attention levels of the board and executives to compliance matters.

• Ensure cross-functional coordination among all stakeholders.

Business involvement in IT initiatives is always desirable, and it is impossible to do IM without it. “No IM effort should go ahead without fully identifying all areas that are affected,” stated one manager. Typically, legal, audit, and the privacy office will have a keen interest in this area. Equally typical, many of the business units affected will not be interested in it. For operational groups, IM is often seen as bureaucratic overhead and extra cost, which is why education and communication about IM are essential. “You have to allow time for these groups to get on board with this concept and come around to the necessity of taking the time to do IM right,” said a participant. He noted that this effort has to be repeated at each level of the organization. “Senior management may be supportive, but members of the working groups may not really understand what we’re trying to accomplish.”

• Get the incentives right.

Even with IM “socialization” (i.e., education and communication), politics is likely to become a major hurdle to the success of any IM efforts. Both giving up control and taking accountability for key pieces of information can be hard for many business managers. Therefore, it is important to ensure incentives are in place that will motivate collaboration. Metrics are an important way to make progress (or the lack of it) highly visible in the organization. One firm developed a team scorecard for its customer information working group that reported two key measures to executives: the percentage of remaining duplicate records and the percentage of “perfect” customer records. Each of these was broken down into a number of leading indicators that helped focus the group’s behavior on the overall effort rather than on individual territories. Another firm linked its process and information simplification efforts to budgets. The savings generated from eliminating duplicate or redundant information (and its associated storage and processing) were returned to the business units involved to be reinvested as they saw fit. This proved to be a huge motivator of enterprise-oriented behavior.

•Establish and model sound information values.

Because frontline workers, who make many decisions about information and procedures, ultimately cannot cover all eventualities, all staff need to understand the fundamental reasons for key company information policies and directives. Corporate values around information guide how staff should behave even when their managers aren’t around. And they provide a basis for sound decision making about information (IBM 2012; Stewart 2004). Others have noted that senior IT leadership should primarily be about forming and modeling values, not managing tasks, and this is especially true for IM, said the focus group. Values are particularly important, they noted, now that staff are more mobile and virtual and, thus, more empowered. If such values are effectively articulated and modeled by leaders, they will drive the development of the appropriate culture and behaviors around information.

You can add below information in the conclusion of paper

Information management is gaining increasing attention in both IT and the business. Driven by compliance and privacy legislation, the increasing vulnerability of corporate information, and the desire for greater integration of systems, IM is beginning to look like an emerging discipline in its own right. However, the challenges facing organizations in implementing effective IM practices are many and daunting. Not least is the need to try to conceptualize the scope and complexity of work to be done. Tackling IM is likely to be a long-term task. IT managers have a huge communications job ahead in trying to educate business leaders about their responsibilities in information stewardship, developing sound IM practices, and inculcating the culture and behaviors needed to achieve the desired results. Developing a plan for tackling the large and ever-increasing amount of information involved is only the first step. The more difficult effort will be involving every member of the organization—from the board to frontline workers—in seeing that it is carried out effectively. Although IT can lead this effort initially and provide substantial support for IM, ultimately its success or failure will be due to how well the business does its part.