Information management driving Process Agility
Founder, Director of Avaali Solutions Pvt Ltd, Ms. Srividya Kannan’s article published in Businessworld.
Information is a strategic asset for any organization. Business processes heavily rely on information (both structured and unstructured) not only to execute but also to govern, innovate and make decisions. Antiquated document imaging systems can create vulnerabilities that increase the risk of compliance violations and data theft. Several scanning and capturing solutions have no encryption at all with unsecured log files and weak security management. When it comes to information, it is not only about making it available at the right time to the right user, but it also needs to be relevant, accurate and trustworthy, to then be called a truly valuable commodity. There is still a lot of chaos within enterprises with respect to how information is managed – for example, easily finding the right content that is secure and intended for the right users is still a huge challenge. Also eliminating ROT (Redundant, outdated and trivial) information from time to time, and ensuring adequate governance and compliance is still an on-going process within enterprises, with a long way to go to reach the desired end state. One of the key elements in any digital transformation journey is information management strategy and execution. Content is created by various stakeholders both within and outside the enterprise. This is often a collaborative exercise, and there are various participants to review, edit and approve the content. Mobile use is pervasive and whether it is emails or access to enterprise applications and information, reliance on security and governance must be adequately addressed. Search, retrieval and access to information are important elements to execute processes, remove duplication and becomes extremely important especially during a litigation and discovery. If every piece of information is not properly found or presented, it could cost enterprises millions of dollars. Information could be residing in several repositories hidden behind firewalls or as siloes of information within individual functions. Again, dissemination of information could be done via multiple channels including company databases, company intranet as well as external repositories. Some of the information could also feed into other applications assisting a business user to seamlessly undertake business processes. In addition to the way information is created and used, consideration must also be given to a strong infrastructure that is designed to support todays as well as future needs relating to scale and growth. Just like enterprises have accounting systems, HR and ERP systems etc. to manage financial, human and physical assets including their associated data, they do need to have the rigor and discipline to create an information management strategy and systems to manage information assets. Business process agility is intrinsically linked to the way information is managed and best leveraged to generate maximum returns for an enterprise.