817.656.8352

Toll-Free: 866.346.4276

As the pace of change accelerates, information systems must quickly adapt and be flexible enough to support these operational changes in the business. The following are the top information management issues that confront nearly every organization:

Aligning information systems and business goals Organizing and using data Integrating systems Capitalizing on advances in information technologies Connecting to customers or suppliers Updating obsolete systems Creating an information infrastructure

The challenge to most organizations is to quickly and incrementally respond to business needs while maintaining relatively low costs. Whether an organization is trying to establish competitive advantage by beating a competitor to market, increasing service levels and responsiveness to customer needs, or delivering a less expensive service/product while still maintaining quality, the information system plays a vital role. Key business functions such as customer service, marketing, finance, and sales all require information technology as an underlying foundation. They also require the information system to seamlessly integrate and cooperate across the organization’s functional or operational boundaries.

The Response

Technology implementation can either accelerate or impede an organization’s ability to adapt to changing business conditions. Today’s information solutions must fully meet business requirements while having an underlying design that is sufficiently flexible to integrate new and emerging technologies without compromising the functionality and daily operations of the existing information system. Manager's approach to planning an information system should:

• Place first priority on addressing business needs.
• Acquire a technical solution that focuses on making the simple things easy and the hard things possible and cost-effective
• Maintain the flexibility required to adapt to the natural evolution of technology and business.

This approach is both proactive and value added in creating a stronger framework for aligning the information system and day-to-day activities with the overall business strategy.

All activities packaged in the information system should focus on assisting ongoing business operations. System developer must have the ability to proactively recognize technologies that offer capabilities that can lead to improvements in the organization’s strategic focus.

A key factor in achieving these goals is to establish a comprehensive, high-level information system plan. The plan provides the framework for a system that could be used across the organization and provide a standardized way for personnel to record and store business information in each department, and allows sharing of information across computers.

The solution must be more powerful than traditional, stand-alone contact management systems and accounting packages. One that tightly integrates applications and allows management, accountants, and personnel to work more efficiently and make better use of business information.

Problems with Other Approaches to Information Management

There are many approaches to developing and acquiring an information system in a small business environment. A brief examination of many of these approaches reveals significant issues that can seriously impede an organization’s chances of successfully implementing an effective information system:

• Just a "Get By" Solution: The idea of a complete information system is not new. Most small businesses claim to have a comprehensive information system in place, but often what they have is no more than a simple "get by" list of programs. 
• Lack of Focus on Implementation: A true information system is not just the plan but also the implementation. Application systems must be built and database infrastructure must be deployed. Everything that is defined in the plan must be implementable within reasonable constraints. Often, however, information management efforts are not based firmly in reality.
• Lack of Integration and Stability: Even when the individual solutions work, they are often stand-alone solutions and not an integral part of the overall information system plan. Personnel will have to retrain, and must re-focus every time they shift from one application to another.

The information system quickly becomes fragmented and business information is scattered cross multiple and incompatible databases, drawers and file cabinets. The result is a chaotic environment. Personnel often can not locate or cross reference customer information, cannot maintain focus while finding information and some opportunities will be lost.

So, take a closer look at the way information is handled in your organization. Do you have an effective information system, or just a collection of program?

» Can My Business Afford It?