Data rich, information poor
Despite being awash in data, many organizations are data rich but information poor. A survey by consulting firm Accenture found 57 percent of companies reporting that they didn’t have a beneficial, consistently updated, companywide analytical capability. Among major decisions, only 60 percent were backed by analytics—40 percent were made by intuition and gut instinct.
Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology, v. 1.0
by John Gallaugher
11.4 Data Rich, Information Poor
http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/9?e=gallaugher-ch11_s04
Legacy Systems: A Prison for Strategic Assets
The experience of one Fortune 100 firm that your author has worked with illustrates how incompatible information systems can actually hold back strategy. This firm was the largest in its category, and sold identical commodity products sourced from its many plants worldwide. Being the biggest should have given the firm scale advantages. But many of the firm’s manufacturing facilities and international locations developed or purchased separate, incompatible systems. Still more plants were acquired through acquisition, each coming with its own legacy systems.
The plants with different information systems used different part numbers and naming conventions even though they sold identical products. As a result, the firm had no timely information on how much of a particular item was sold to which worldwide customers. The company was essentially operating as a collection of smaller, regional businesses, rather than as the worldwide behemoth that it was.
After the firm developed an information system that standardized data across these plants, it was, for the first time, able to get a single view of worldwide sales. The firm then used this data to approach their biggest customers, negotiating lower prices in exchange for increased commitments in worldwide purchasing. This trade let the firm take share from regional rivals. It also gave the firm the ability to shift manufacturing capacity globally, as currency prices, labor conditions, disaster, and other factors impacted sourcing. The new information system in effect liberated the latent strategic asset of scale, increasing sales by well over a billion and a half dollars in the four years following implementation.
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Data rich, information poor という場合には、ITシステムに問題があることが多い。何十年も前に作られたシステムを使い続けた結果、データが有効に活用されていないとか、システム開発への投資を怠った結果、データはあるのにそれを重要な決定の参考にできないとか、そんな場合が多い。
これに対し、Information rich, knowledge poor という場合は、個人の問題であることが多い。みんなが情報に振り回され、返事を書いたり情報を整理したりと、情報に対応しているうちに、一日が終わる。情報を知識に変えることなど、誰にも出来ない。
メールやメッセージが来れば反応し、ソーシャル・メディアに反応し、ニュースに反応し、ニュースでもないものにも反応してしまう。そんなふうに反応を繰り返すうちに、考えることを忘れ、知識はグーグルの中にあるからといって、知識を持つことを放棄する。
反応の先に待っているのは奴隷の生活だと、気がつく人はそう多くない。