One of the most basic initiatives of information technology is the alignment of IT with business strategy.  For years, this has been a challenging feat for business execs and IT managers alike.  A valuable  survey by McKinsey titled “The next frontier in IT Strategy” reports promising news for businesses undergoing IT projects.  The survey highlights the recent success of many firms in IT and process alignment, indicating a shift from funamental design to value creation.   This data suggests that not only is IT conducting the basic operations of business, it is now receiving management support and thus being positioned in a way to further the tactical goals of the company.  

Sounds simple enough, but why has it been so difficult to get here?  What can we learn from these success stories that we can apply to other companies who are still struggling with process alignment?

Great post by Raj Sheelvant regarding non-profit Wikipedia supporter, Wikimedia, and their upcoming open strategy session.   How can a company with no prior strategic direction have grown to be so successful?  How can they plan for future growth? 

In reference to Raj’s statement, the problem with involving the ‘crowd’ is the noise that it generates.  Like trying to find a needle in a haystack, how can Wikimedia develop a system to sort through all of the content to find the answers their readers are looking for?

http://itstrategyblog.com/wikimedia%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9copen%e2%80%9d-strategy-planning-session/

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Well thought through online strategies can do so much more than deliver high quality web sites for internal and external users. They can dramatically improve some of your business fundamentals. There are few things more fundamental than the quality of your data.

When people think of data quality they often focus first on customer data. One of the best ways to ensure that customer data is right is to provide a way for your own customers to update their details online. On its own, this is an important capability, but to be really effective it needs to be linked to something that the customer regularly does on the web, such as reviewing their accounts, orders or other interactions with your organisation. Truly effective businesses make updating customer details part of every interaction and available to all stakeholders in the customer, effectively building a Facebook-like facility for their customers identifying relationships (friends), preferences and activities.

Apart from enhanced customer service, it is worth remembering that it is much harder to maintain a fraudulent identify when you are connected through multiple relationships and you have to maintain an exponential number of fronts.

Business data includes much more than just customer details. Online collaboration both inside and outside the enterprise can enhance almost all data in some way. One of the most common problems businesses face is maintaining an accurate understanding of the definition of complex business terminology. Every organisation develops their own language and expects staff, customers and business partners to understand it. Worse, few maintain a dictionary of this language.

Consider creating such a dictionary, with components that are visible internally, other parts to business partners and a relevant subset to the world in general. To really leverage the power of the web, make this dictionary readily updatable (even using a wiki). While open to misuse, it is unlikely that internal staff or business partners who are easily traced will deliberately abuse the privilege. Online communities have shown that complex topics attract genuinely interested contributors who can often provide a better explanation to their peers that you could hope to publish either from an insight or simple labour perspective.

Finally having learnt to use the web to better maintain customer data and your data dictionary, it rapidly becomes obvious that many datasets would be candidates to be open to a wider community for monitoring, comment or even enhancement. Consider lists of branches, community contacts and products. In the last case, suppliers sometimes make changes which flow through your supply chain without being updated in online catalogues.

If there is one thing we’ve learnt, the fear that we feel about opening our content up for collaboration is often disproportionate to the real risk of misuse. If you succumb to this fear without carefully considering what you are worried about, then you’ll miss out on the power that the crowd can bring to our business.

Readers interested in these concepts should read further about the intersection of Enterprise 2.0 and Information Management in MIKE2.0, in particular the MIKE2.0 Enterprise 2.0 Solution Offering.

 

New Author Incentive Program! MIKE2.0 “Contribution of the Month”  Mike2.0’s Open Methodology Framework is a collaborative environment for building methods to solve complex issues impacting business, technology and society.  And this month, we’re giving you the perfect opportunity to showcase your work.   Community members who login and post the “best original information management article” by Wednesday, September 30 will receive a $100 incentive prize.  This program is open to both new and current community members.  All member contributions will be reviewed and judged by current MIKE2.0 Governance Association board members.  All areas of focus will be considered, with specific preference given to IM topics pertaining to: Healthcare/Life Sciences Industry Sustainability/Green Initiatives Government/Legal Implications Questions?  Email us at mike2@openmethodology.org. We look forward to collaborating with you! Sincerely, MIKE2.0 Community
	Contribute to Mike:Start a new article, help with articles under construction or look for other ways to contribute.   Post a question in one of our forums. Update your personal profile to advertise yourself to the community and interact with other members. Useful Links: Home Page Login Content Model FAQs MIKE2.0 Governance Join Us on Follow Us on Did You Know? All content on MIKE2.0 and any contributions you make are published under the Creative Commons license. This allows you free re-use of our content as long as you add a brief reference back to us.     This Week’s Food for Thought: Concept Paper: The Information Implications of Hosted vs. In-House CRMs   The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market is rapidly expanding and analysts are forecasting the “subscription revenues” to be approximately 22% of a $10 USD Billion CRM market by 2010. Based on this growing trend in CRM, many IT professionals have begun to comment on the considerations in making this strategic decision between Hosted and In-House CRMs. This article discusses the decision criteria for hosted vs. in-house CRMs and outlays the information implications for each.  Featured Article: Aligning IT with the Business In a recent Forrester survey, only 15 percent of IT leaders declared themselves to be fully aligned with the business. What that tells us is that IT-business alignment isn’t just a problem–it’s a plague. Read the complete story.    Wiki Under Construction! An Aggregated Approach to Meeting Regulatory Requirements  In meeting regulations such as Basel, SOX, IFRS and AML, many organisations have struggled due to the complexity of their information management environments. Cost has been very high and approaches have often involved tactical measures that actually make the long-term environment more difficult to manage. Data Quality has been a particular issue. As regulatory requirements are becoming increasingly demanding, there is a need to get “out in front” with a better approach to the development of infrastructure and information. Read the complete article.  Feel free to offer your thoughts or feedback!
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