Managing your information as an asset-Part 1

"Manage your information as an asset" - You see this mantra flashed on every presentation on information management these days. Senior executives have this on their agenda. Business leaders are eager to aggressively plan a coordinated move with current information to respond to marketplace. Operational leaders want to optimize. Green leaders want a smaller carbon footprint of their data centers. Product and services vendors want to capitalize on the theme. It sounds contagious and it should be.

How are we manifesting this powerful idea? How can organizations, both big and small, lay the foundation and go on such a journey ?

1. Evangelize what exactly do you mean by an asset and communicate the approach and benefits of making information as one. Keep it simple, crisp and yet powerful.

2. Categorize your information. If you hear "it is all data and .. it is all the same" you are several zip codes away from your destination. Seriously !

3. Discuss and plan the ownership and stewardship of this asset. If you already have a data governance framework this should not be difficult.

4. Create instrumentation for periodically measuring the value of your asset. Very similar to how you measure and balance your investment portfolio. If your governance framework has achieved creation of actionable metrics then you just moved one step higher on the information maturity model.

5. Effectively translate the measures into business understandable benefits. "Speak English" a mentor of mine used to say several years ago.

6. Create joint ownership of this program between producers and consumers of information. Is the balance 50/50 ? 40/60? it depends on your industry/sector. If you are a conglomerate, you have to address this differently.

7. Show your business leaders that you can (and later in the program, you are) making money with this venture. This can be done in several different ways.

I can help you create a strategy, establish business case, build project charters & supporting cost models, define metrics to quantify progress and provide hands-on leadership in this exciting journey.

Information is your most powerful asset, capitalize on it in this downturn !