Information Management Essay Research Paper Information Management

Information Management Essay, Research Paper

Information Management 1CourseworkQuestion 2 Information Management is the structured organisation of predifined data John Wiley & Sons, NY., 1997 Information refers to data that has meaning Dr. A Taylor & S Farrell, IM in Business Organisations, 1998. Introduction Information is the new corporate competitive weapon. Organisations must utilise information and exploit it at every opportunity if they want to be successful and survive in todays global market place. To achieve this firms must foster an information culture that encourages its people to read, think and coordinate information through teams: Information is power and should be considered a value added resourse. This becomes more important as firms globalize and face more competition. A resource is a value-added entity which can transform a raw material into a commodity. For example, cloth into clothes, components into computers. In this sense, it can be seen that information can now be regarded as a resource. In this essay I will discuss how information is used as a resource by organisations and how it is managed and mapped, showing the various techniques which a company can use in gathering and assessing information to help in their competitive strategy. I will also look at three case studies to show how these organisations have used information as an entity to turn their materials into a commodity. Information Traditionally information was not seen by organizations as a resource; land, labour, and capital were the only resources considered as a value adding. However, one only has to look at the phenomenal success stories of resource poor nations such as Japan, Singapore, Thailand and Korea to see that land, labour, and the capital are not the only prerequisites for success. These countries have had only brains and muscle power to run their economies and therefore have had to do a much better job of utilising and exploiting information. Porter (1990), for example, argues that a nations or an organisation s competetiveness depends on its capicity to use and exploit innovative technologies. A computer can t create it yet information is the single most important resourse a company can have, worth a lot more than land, labour, and capital. At the basic level information is data that has been processed in such a way as to be of some meaning to the person who receives it. Figure 1. The transformation process. Data Information Information can be used in a variety of ways to provide companies with a competitive advantage over their rivals: It can provide organisations with the buying patterns of consumers, allowing them to gear their sales towards this, or provide them with the information concerning the entry level to markets that they do not yet compete in. Any information that gives an organisation an advantage over its rivals is essential. Often managers fail to realise that the key ingredient to success is how they manage information. The right information at the right time can mean success or failure. Information management provides competitive advantage. Information can only be used as a weapon to give an advantage if it is correctly and effectively linked into the organisation. It is important that the individuals that require it receive the correct information. William Synnott (1987) describes information as a weapon. His Information Weapon Model categorises areas in an organisation where Information Technology may be used to establish competitive advantage. These areas are: · Information· Innovation· Productivity Information Planning Anthony (1965) provided the first framework model for the planning and control of information flow. This theory gives a structure for the analysis and design of systems, see fig2. From this it can be seen that the Top level management need information specific to aid the strategic planning of the organisation to help the organisation to maintain a level of standard that keeps them in competition with their rivals. The management control level will ensure the resources are used properly as stated in the decision made by the top-level management. The operational control keep the day to day running of the company going smoothly. The correct information has to be made available at these levels for the organisation to compete successfully in the market place. Figure 2 Framework for Planning & Control Strategic Executive planning management Management Functional control management Operation Operating Control management It can be seen then that as long as information is managed correctly it can be a very strategic weapon. Anthony s framework have been incorporated into the development of Management Information Systems (MISs). However, this information must be obtained in the first place in order for it to be useful. This is done by information mapping. Information Mapping Information mapping makes this possible through using a series of techniques (entity, asset, flow) which can distinguish between critical information resources and those of marginal value. These Information Resource Entities (IREs) and their positioning within a Corporate Information Map (CIM) highlights where these information resources lie within the organisation. i.e. where they come from, which add value, which is critical or marginal. The use of information maps allows an organisation to see where the real value lies in vertical and horizontal information flow. An organisa