As IT consultants we see this all the time….There is generally some confusion on what is needed to solve the problem in an organization’s IT infrastructure. We often ask clients what they are looking to improve or where they have a weakness. Some describe their problems with architecture and technology enablement, content delivery, business intelligence and performance management, enterprise data management or information asset management. Though the phrase “enterprise data management” seems like seems like it would be a data management problem, this one is really an information management problem. It is these instances where organizations miss the opportunity to correct the true problem. This happens regularly where IT directors and other industry professionals don’t classify the problem accurately. They implement a wrong solution then over time results show there are faults within the system. Time and money has been spent fixing a problem with a solution that does not fit.
What makes Across Borders Consulting Group different from other IT consulting firms is we take the time to correctly diagnose the real problem and accurately create the right solution. There are significant differences between information management and data management. According to Wikipedia information management is “the acquisition of information from one or more sources, the custodianship and the distribution of that information to those who need it and its ultimate disposition through archiving or deletion.” There are a variety of job functions associated with information management including those who need it for making decisions and people who are responsible for data safety, storage and disposal.
Data management refers to the development and execution of data architectures, policies, practices and procedures that accurately maintain the data needs of an enterprise.
We often see the breakdown in an IT infrastructure is not the data storage systems in place and security of the data, but rather the delivery and usage of the data for business intelligence purposes. It’s very typical for an organization to have the data available and nobody knows how to distribute the information internally. What’s even a bigger problem is reading the data and how to interpret. Data is useless without the skills to analyze it. Many people can access the data by generating reports and exporting the data. Where there is a breakdown is in the understanding of what the data means and how to draw conclusions or make recommendations.
Understanding the data and distributing the information would fall under the information management category which is far different than a data management problem. We strongly encourage IT professionals in all organizations to dig deep into their organization and take a look at where the inefficiencies may be occurring. Is it in the gathering and distribution of data (information management) or is it in the procedures for maintaining the data (data management?)
Generally, if there are concerns or issues with regard to data governance, data quality, master data management, data architecture, privacy/security or data retention and archiving you would be dealing with a data management issue(s). If the problems are more related to enterprise content management, enterprise data management, business intelligence, performance management, enterprise data management or content delivery you would be considering an information management approach to solving the problems.
At Across Borders Management Consulting our team works with IT professionals in a variety of organizations. We offer project based coaching where we guide IT professionals in the implementation of solution(s). We also offer more long term consulting where we act as the IT department for our clients. In this scenario the daily, weekly and monthly IT tasks are outsourced to us.
We offer the best IT management in the industry, customized solutions at competitive prices. For more information on how Across Borders Management Consulting Group can help your organization we invite you to contact our Mt. Dora, Florida office at 352-720-3135 or visit our contact page on our website located at: http://www.abmcg.com/company/contacts and describe your IT environment and how we can help you.
