Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Useless Information "JANUARY 10, 2007
'You got that information I asked for yet?'
'Uh, yeah, I did, boss. But....'
Information is a vital component in running a business today.
However the information-gathering process at most businesses is neither efficient nor effective, according to a recent survey of more than 1,000 middle managers in the US and the UK, conducted by Accenture.
Most of the business information they receive has no value, according to 53% of the respondants to the survey.
Even once a good piece of information is obtained, it is poorly disseminated within the company. Only half of the respondents said their companies do a good job governing information distribution — or have established adequate processes to determine what data should go to what parts of the organization.
"Managers are having great difficulty navigating a rapidly expanding sea of information, and the situation is only getting worse," said Royce Bell of Accenture. "The findings show that companies are failing to get the right information to their employees."
The findings indicate that organizations are simply failing to keep up with the volume of information produced by technological innovation. In fact, 59% of the managers said that because of poor distribution, they miss information that might be valuable to their jobs "almost every day." Although they know the information exists somewhere in the company, they cannot find it.
Apparently, "sharing" is not a corporate trait. Surprisingly, it is easier to get information on the competition than on one's own company — 45% of the managers said gathering information about what other parts of their company were doing was a challenge and 40% said that other parts of their company were not willing to share information. Conversely, only 31% said that getting information on their competitors was difficult.
Much of the overall problem lies in the way managers gather and store information.
More than half (57%) of the respondents said that having to go to numerous sources to compile information made managing the information difficult. In addition, 42% said they accidentally use the wrong information at least once a week.
In order to get information about competitors, customers, project responsibility or other departments, respondents said on average they have to go to three different information sources, and 36% said there is so much information available that it takes a long time to sort through and find the right piece of data.
Once they find the information they are looking for, only 16% of the managers in the survey use a collaborative workplace — such as a company's intranet portal — to store it; most keep it on their computers or in individual e-mail accounts, where it can easily be lost or even stolen.
"Information is becoming a burden on knowledge workers and will remain so until companies consolidate and streamline the stores and sources of intelligence," said Greg Todd of Accenture. "Doing so will enable them to give back part of the working day to staff, helped by better governance, delivery, integration and the archiving and retention of information."
For more information on how companies are communicating, read eMarketer's E-Mail and Word-of-Mouth: Connect with Your Best Customers report...."
'You got that information I asked for yet?'
'Uh, yeah, I did, boss. But....'
Information is a vital component in running a business today.
However the information-gathering process at most businesses is neither efficient nor effective, according to a recent survey of more than 1,000 middle managers in the US and the UK, conducted by Accenture.
Most of the business information they receive has no value, according to 53% of the respondants to the survey.
Even once a good piece of information is obtained, it is poorly disseminated within the company. Only half of the respondents said their companies do a good job governing information distribution — or have established adequate processes to determine what data should go to what parts of the organization.
"Managers are having great difficulty navigating a rapidly expanding sea of information, and the situation is only getting worse," said Royce Bell of Accenture. "The findings show that companies are failing to get the right information to their employees."
The findings indicate that organizations are simply failing to keep up with the volume of information produced by technological innovation. In fact, 59% of the managers said that because of poor distribution, they miss information that might be valuable to their jobs "almost every day." Although they know the information exists somewhere in the company, they cannot find it.
Apparently, "sharing" is not a corporate trait. Surprisingly, it is easier to get information on the competition than on one's own company — 45% of the managers said gathering information about what other parts of their company were doing was a challenge and 40% said that other parts of their company were not willing to share information. Conversely, only 31% said that getting information on their competitors was difficult.
Much of the overall problem lies in the way managers gather and store information.
More than half (57%) of the respondents said that having to go to numerous sources to compile information made managing the information difficult. In addition, 42% said they accidentally use the wrong information at least once a week.
In order to get information about competitors, customers, project responsibility or other departments, respondents said on average they have to go to three different information sources, and 36% said there is so much information available that it takes a long time to sort through and find the right piece of data.
Once they find the information they are looking for, only 16% of the managers in the survey use a collaborative workplace — such as a company's intranet portal — to store it; most keep it on their computers or in individual e-mail accounts, where it can easily be lost or even stolen.
"Information is becoming a burden on knowledge workers and will remain so until companies consolidate and streamline the stores and sources of intelligence," said Greg Todd of Accenture. "Doing so will enable them to give back part of the working day to staff, helped by better governance, delivery, integration and the archiving and retention of information."
For more information on how companies are communicating, read eMarketer's E-Mail and Word-of-Mouth: Connect with Your Best Customers report...."
Labels: Enterprise Search, Knowledge Workers, Search, UiKnow
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