Introducing Information Management

Matthew Hinton

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781136393662
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Business
• Categoria: Business General

This book provides a clear and concise overview of Information Management covering the key aspects of infrastructure, design, information assets and managing information.* Part 1 explores the diversity and changing nature of managing the information management function.
* Part 2 investigates the role of information as an organizational resource.
* Part 3 focuses on managing organizational data and information.
* Part 4 examines the role of information management in organizational strategy and change.

PART 1 Introduction: Managing the Information Management Function

Matthew Hinton

DOI: 10.4324/9780080458397-2

The role of information is so important that there is a new function emerging – the Information Management Function. This function is concerned with all aspects of managing information within organizations. However, the growth in the use of information technology (IT) has meant that many people confuse information management with the management of information technology. While this is an important aspect of the information management function, it tells only part of the story. Information management (IM) is broader than this and should be seen as the conscious process by which information is gathered and used to assist in decision making at all levels of an organization.

Organizations create specialized functions when a specialized expertise is required. The use of information and communication technologies is so pervasive that a certain level of expertise must be distributed broadly across the organization. Individuals and workgroups within the other organizational functions may have significant responsibility for their own information management activities or local systems involving information technology. However, the information management function has responsibility for maintaining expertise sufficient to assist individuals, groups and other functions in their information management to provide integration across the organization and build and maintain the corporate information infrastructures necessary for integrated information processes. The same concept can be observed in other functions. For example, budgeting and analysis of financial results must be applied by many individuals and workgroups, but the accounting function has responsibility for establishing standards, providing expertise and consolidating and interpreting results at the organizational level.

An organization must build, maintain and rebuild its business processes and information systems. Every business function has a role in these activities. However, the information management function has a more active role because many of the processes and systems incorporate information technology. Although each business function should be involved in the design and development of its processes and systems, the complete information system expertise needed for such development is not normally present in a function. Also, many information systems cross functions, so no single function can define the requirements for these systems. The information management function has special expertise for business process and system development. A unique role of information management is integration, both in development and information operations. This cross-functional, integrative role makes information management very broad in its domain of interest, dynamic and demanding.

In Chapter 1, Managing information in modern organizations, Hinton outlines why there is a need for an information management function within modern organizations. The history of the management of information technology is outlined which demonstrates that managing this volatile technology has gone through several key stages. These stages commonly reflect the nature of the benefits that organizations seek to derive from the application of IT. The chapter outlines the key challenges that now face the information management function. These include (but are not limited to) the use of resources; managing IT’s entanglement with most business processes; dependency on data, personnel and technology; legacy systems; and the wide ranging effects of system design. The chapter sets out several key concepts in information management that help to understand and respond to these crucial challenges. Lastly, the chapter lays out some critical developments that will help to shape future directions for information management.

In Chapter 2, Organizing and leading the information technology function, Applegate, McFarlan and McKenney discuss a wide array of variables affecting the information management function. This ranges from internal ones such as the quality and nature of existing hardware, software and IT staff and the nature of the business’s products or services, through to external factors related to the geographical spread and location of the business. The main implications of such variability are the need to strike an appropriate balance in two key areas:

• Between innovation and control of the organization of information management and IT, and
• Between being led by IT specialists or by users.

Applegate et al.’s underlying message is one of designing structures that strike the right balance between domination by users and domination by IT providers to suit the nature of the organization’s business and other variables. However, there is an implication that a relatively flexible structure – a matrix or network rather than a traditional bureaucracy – is necessary to enable organizations to exploit IT positively over long periods. Equally, the authors suggest that certain types of organizational culture are more appropriate to developing the IM function. The chapter makes some useful links between the organization of IT and the information management function and the responsibilities of other business functions. For instance there are a number of references to the need to develop and manage relationships between IT specialists and users, and the appropriate skills and experience required for different roles in managing the information management function (involving human resource management). The contribution of IT to cost reduction, performance information and the evaluation of IT investments demonstrate the functional overlap with accounting and finance. Much of the chapter links to operations management responsibilities such as purchasing, supplier relationships and control. There are also examples of the role of information systems in marketing to external customers, as well as a strong underlying message that if the information management function markets itself effectively, internal users will eventually learn to appreciate how much the function has to offer!

CHAPTER 1 Managing Information in Modern Organizations

Matthew Hinton

DOI: 10.4324/9780080458397-3

Introduction

The last decade has seen an unparalleled increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) within organizations. The expansion of computing, fuelled by ongoing technological developments in personal computing, networked communications and the explosion of the Internet, has radically altered the way organizations work. Hand in hand with the dramatic increases in the availability of the technology is the rapid diffusion of ICT to the majority of organizational members. Nearly all professional roles can no longer function without some form of interaction with ICT. The last decade has also seen a change in the application of ICT within organizations. The ability to manipulate critical management information has stimulated a progression from applying ICT to automate work, to applying it to enhance decision-making activities. This has the potential to alter the very nature of many work activities.

Few in business would dispute that ICT is essential. However, many see their use of ICT as a necessary and costly requirement for business survival, rather than a means of unleashing the untapped competitive advantage of their company. Indeed, it is argued that a gulf exists between the investment made in information and communication technology and an organization’s ability to reap significant business benefit from it. Accordingly, the various changes taking place have made the management of the technology a critical concern. This concern is manifest in the inability to justify ICT expenditure, a lack of integration between the technology and business needs and a plethora of problems associated with managing the operations of the technical functions responsible for ICT. Accordingly, organizations must learn to maximize the advantages offered by ICT while avoiding the many pitfalls associated with rapid technological change.

Why Is There a Need for an Information Management Function?

Modern organizations use a variety of resources in order to fulfil their objectives. Regardless of whether they are public or private, multinationals or small entities, they all share a set of common resources which they depend on to carry out their goals. These are financial resources, skilled people, physical property, time and information. Successful organizations are those that find ways to optimize the value of these resources to produce the best stakeholder value they can. So at the simplest level most managers’ main task is that of asset management. While these assets are important to all organizations, their proportionate value is not necessarily the same. Nevertheless, it is a commonly held belief that information is essential to all organizations, but that skilled people are the most important asset, regardless of organizational goals or industry sector. Indeed, as we move into a more information intensive environment it is the combination of people and information resources that will deliver superior performance and competitive advantage. In fact, organizations that repeatedly deliver high performance, or are responsible for developing innovative goods or services, are likely to have motivated and empowered employees supported by well-developed information systems. As Frenzel (1999) states:

The leverage of information and people is so powerful that managers in high-performance organizations devote considerable energy to managing information, its delivery system, the people who deliver it, and those who use it.The combination of skilled people and advanced information technology has revolutionised the concept of management.

This is an important point because the adoption of new ICT entails more than just the installation of the technology. Successful technology adoption requires organizations to assimilate the technology into their business processes and to understand how its introduction can distort the current balance of power within the organization itself. The introduction of new information systems can often redistribute knowledge among the workforce with consequences for managerial authority. Equally, employees feel a greater sense of responsibility as a result of engaging with more knowledge-based work. The growth in this type of knowledge-oriented activity means that workers and managers need to create new relationships based on participative management techniques. This should allow for a less formal management structure with greater decentralization, employee commitment and the development of self-managing teams. However, for organizations to move in such a direction they need to have strategies and plans for ICT adoption, which are developed and supported by appropriately skilled personnel. Usually expert ICT departments exist who would oversee this sort of development. Such a department would be responsible for developing the organization’s strategic perspective with respect to the deployment of new technology and also for guiding its implementation and supporting and maintaining the systems once they are installed. In most organizations the ICT department is essential.

Most modern organizations have some form of ICT department. However, the growth in the use of information and communication technology has meant that there is a tendency in some quarters for people to mistake the concept of ‘information management’ with the practice of ‘managing information technology’. While the management of the technology is no small task and one not to be underestimated, it tells only part of the story. Information management is much broader than this and should be seen as the conscious process by which information is gathered and used to assist in decision making throughout an organization. As a result, organizations have to develop an information management function which is capable of addressing this. The ICT department forms part of this response. By bringing together people with the requisite technical skills (systems analysts, programmers, web designers etc.) an organization can support the other organizational functions with respect to their information needs. Examples of this appear in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Functional applications supported by the ICT department

Functions	IT applications supported
Operations	Materials logistics, factory automation, warehouse automation, shipping and receiving
Marketing	Customer relationship management systems, sales analysis systems, market research and forecasting systems
Finance and accounting	Budgetary control and planning systems, accounts payable
Human resources	Personnel records, training and development systems, compensation analysis systems

These examples are just a few of the myriad of systems that ICT departments are expected to support. Together these systems are often referred to as the applications portfolio, which includes the entire range of systems found within an organization. As well as the large, centralized systems (like payroll) which are the modern versions of the early computer systems, the applications portfolio also includes systems developed by functional areas for specific purposes and the communications infrastructure which binds all these systems together. An average sized organization may easily have an applications portfolio holding several thousand computer programs. The configuration of the information management function has to cater for this array of systems. Consequently, ICT departments are a mix of some centralized and some decentralized activity. Centralized functions include building new computer applications, operating and maintaining existing systems, as well as helping to develop strategic plans for the use of ICT. By contrast there may be smaller groups of ICT professionals who are responsible for supporting computer operations in other functions, say operations or marketing, or providing localized ICT training or end-user support. The structure of the information management function can vary greatly depending on an organization’s culture and the characteristics of the industry sector it is in. Structures will be different depending on the variety of different organizational and department needs. Furthermore, as organizations evolve they change their business processes often through new technology adoption. The ICT departmental structures have to adapt to reflect these changes.

While a certain level of information management expertise needs to be distributed across the organization, there is a critical role for information management specialists to integrate activity throughout the organization, building and maintaining the corporate information infrastructures necessary for integrated information processes.

The History of Ict Management

The history of information and communication technologies is one of phenomenal and rapid technological development. Often the potential of the technology has outstripped the ability of organizations to make use of it. The way that organizations have tried to manage this technology has gone through several distinct stages.

Computing technology has been used in organizations since the late 1950s. Initially, computers were seen as mammoth calculating machines, relevant only to scientists and code-breakers. It was not until the second or third generation of computers appeared on the market that commercial computing and data processing really emerged. The first applications of this technology were for routine business data handling and hence this phase of applications acquired the generic name of Data Processing Systems or DP for short. Early commercial computers were used mainly to automate the routine clerical work of large administrative departments. As the costs of these early computers were very high and the scope of what they could do was limited by comparison to today’s standards, the business benefits were to be gained by automating large-scale administrative processing. Because of this they were used to automate existing processes, especially for tasks that were labour intensive, such as well-defined accounting operations like Payroll and general ledger systems.

By the late 1960s computers had become pervasive with large corporations having acquired big mainframe systems. Rapid advances in both the hardware (...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Introducing Information Management: the business approach
• Part 1 Introduction: Managing the Information Management Function
• Managing information in modern organizations
• Organizing and leading the information technology function
• Part 2 Introduction: Information as an Organizational Resource
• Data, capta, information and knowledge
• The process of information management
• The processes which information systems support
• Organizations and information
• Part 3 Introduction: Managing Organizational Data and Information
• Generic types of information systems
• Business information systems
• Information systems for human resource applications
• Distributed systems, EDI and the organization
• Part 4 Introduction: Information Management in Organizational Strategy and Change
• Strategy and information systems
• The search for opportunity
• The need for redesign – a paradigm shift?
• Investing in information technology: a lottery?
• Index