Making the Invisible Visible: How Companies Win with the Right Information, People and IT - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Donald A. Marchand is Professor of Information Management and Strategy at the International Institute of Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Professor William J. Kettinger is Director of the Center of Information Management and Technology Research at the Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina.

John D. Rollins is the managing partner of Strategic Information Technology Effectiveness for Accenture (formerly known as Andersen Consulting), a leading global management and technology consultancy.

(Further details about the authors can be found inside the book.)

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Companies in the e-economy are under increasing pressure to show strong business performance and to maximize information resources to produce results. Information is a company’s most important currency in building and maintaining a competitive edge today. Technology has enhanced our ability to gather and process information. Companies worldwide spend more than $1.4 trillion on information technology, but until now, there has been no way to measure the effectiveness of IT within the organization, or its real impact on the bottom line.

Following a major two-year global research project involving 1,009 senior managers from over 100 companies representing 22 countries and 25 industries, the authors have proven that when a company is high on Information Orientation (IO)^TM it will be high on business performance.

Not only can IO be applied as a diagnostic tool or a benchmark to measure the effectiveness of an organization’s information-use, it can also be used to predict business performance.

Information Orientation^TM measures a company’s Information Capabilities^TM in three areas:

• Information behaviour and values of people
• Information management practices
• Information technology practices

The authors have validated that it is the total interaction of these three capabilities and their effective management that results in superior business performance.

Aus dem Klappentext

Companies in the e-economy are under increasing pressure to show strong business performance and to maximize information resources to produce results. Information is a company's most important currency in building and maintaining a competitive edge today. Technology has enhanced our ability to gather and process information. Companies worldwide spend more than $1.4 trillion on information technology, but until now, there has been no way to measure the effectiveness of IT within the organization, or its real impact on the bottom line.
Following a major two-year global research project involving 1,009 senior managers from over 100 companies representing 22 countries and 25 industries, the authors have proven that when a company is high on Information Orientation (IO)(TM) it will be high on business performance.
Not only can IO be applied as a diagnostic tool or a benchmark to measure the effectiveness of an organization's information-use, it can also be used to predict business performance.
Information Orientation (IO)(TM) measures a company's Information Capabilities(TM) in three areas:
* Information behaviour and values of people
* Information management practices
* Information technology practices
The authors have validated that it is the total interaction of these three capabilities and their effective management that results in superior business performance.

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Introduction

There is a well-known saying in management that 'You can't manage what you can't measure.' However, there is an even more basic reality underlying this adage which is 'You can't measure what you can't see.' This book is about seeing information in a new way so you can both measure its use and manage it to improve business performance.

It is with information that people in business express and convey their knowledge about markets, competitors, customers, products, services and operations. If knowledge-consisting of experience, skills, expertise, judgement, and emotions-primarily resides with people, in order to share knowledge and increase business performance, managers and employees need to use information. Information, or more precisely data, is around us like the air we breathe, yet few companies and managers perceive its importance to business success. Managers complain about either information overload-as they are barraged by e-mails, voice mails, cell phone calls, and reports - or information scarcity-when they prepare to make decisions about key strategies or customers, but have little or no meaningful information available to them.

You may be asking yourself: 'Well, if information is so important to the ways companies perform today, why haven't managers already learned to manage information better?' The answer is that some companies have indeed learned to use information effectively to achieve superior performance. These managers understand how to leverage information, people and information technology (IT) to systematically improve business performance. We call these three capabilities 'information capabilities'. They are not only essential for executing business strategies today with speed, agility and responsiveness, but they can also be employed to enhance, substitute or reduce the use of people, organizational structures or business processes. Companies that develop superior levels of information capabilities in the ways they integrate their people, information practices and IT can be more profitable and innovative than their competitors.

You may also be thinking: 'Isn't effective information use what information technology and e-business are all about?'

The answer to this question is yes and no. During the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, managers have been trying primarily to use information technology, rather than to manage information-all too often with mixed success. They have been preoc- cupied with the 'T' in IT, to the detriment of the '1', which seemed to fade away as business managers learned to use IT to transact orders, issue payments, plan manufacturing and service customers. Just learning about each new wave of IT, and buying and deploying the latest hardware and software, has filled the scarce time available to managers. And senior managers seemed to take it for granted that the '1' was part of n~ing a business; they rarely worried about it. They seemed to believe that, if necessary, they could rely on IT and information specialists for advice.

This focus on technology has also de-emphasized one critical component of information use-people. While managers have worked on learning how to manage technology and information, they have not yet developed a full understanding of how people's behaviours affect information use within their companies. After more than 40 years of IT in business, and with the rapid evolution of the Internet and e-business, one conclusion is certain: the Internet and IT have become competitive necessities in industry worldwide. So today, to differentiate themselves from their competitors, managers must focus on the ways people use information. Our research showed us this: senior managers believe that the competitive advantage goes to companies that create superior business results by synchronizing the management of their people with information and IT

STORIES OF TWO COMPANIES

Let's take a look at two companies in very different industries and see how they manage people, information and IT to achieve superior business performance. Although these two companies use different business models, they exhibit similar characteristics of effective information use.

Hilti Corporation Founded in 1941 in the principality of Liechtenstein, Hilti is one of the world's leading companies specializing in drills, fasteners and demolition systems for the construction industry. ounder Martin Hilti's belief 'that market share is more important than factories' has led, over the years, to an obsession with understanding and responding to customers. From its beginnings, Hilti employed a direct sales force, rather than using distributors or dealers as most of its competitors did. This internal group sells the company's products and provides knowledgeable advice on the best use of Hilti products on construction sites. Today, Hilti's management recognizes the value of the over 70,000 contacts per day its 7,000 sales representatives have with customers. They provide hands-on advice and training in the use of Hilti's products, which usually sell for significantly higher prices than its competitors' products.

From the beginning, Martin Hilti considered a corporate culture of high employee involvement and communications to be 'very special'. The primary values of the culture were - and continue to be - openness, integrity, tolerance, responsibility and teamwork. These values are central to both individual and organizational behaviour at Hilti today.

In the 1990s, Hilti experienced several key changes in strategy (from a geographic to a market segment-based approach) and organizational structure (from a very decentralized country-based operation to a more global approach with local adaptations). The company needed to respond better to construction industry shifts as well as to more intense competition in its key markets.

Through these changes, senior managers recognized the crucial role that each employee plays in adapting to constantly changing business conditions and in contributing to the company's success. Senior managers worked aggressively to develop new ideas and business concepts with high employee involvement. Managers were convinced that employees who clearly understand and are informed about the business, as it changes, are more motivated to achieve shared performance goals.

For example, Hilti's managers have, in recent years, refined the process of educating Hilti's 12,000 employees about the business and its performance through the use of 'cockpit charts' in every work area. The charts identify key performance information to the shop-floor workers and sales representatives. To do this, Hilti developed ...