Why is modernizing information management critical to business success?
Proactivity is key when it comes to data and information management — so organizations can unlock new avenues of growth and profitability.
1. You can’t do digital transformation without it
Digital transformation is a great idea but it’s somewhat distanced from reality, and yet companies have to go through it.
Every organization is on—or should be— on a digital transformation journey”, and indeed 81% of organizations feel that digital transformation is important (or very important). But moving from that sense of importance to an actual plan can be difficult.
— AIIM 2018 Conference
One thing is key—if you want to enable digital transformation within any business, the information infrastructure needs to be solid, digital and modern.
The reason for this is simple.
If you don’t have a solid foundation under which to manage the underlying information within your business, how can you possibly digitize the processes that sit on top of it?
If you cannot quickly If you cannot quickly find data or content within the enterprise, then how do you expect to leverage analytics or AI?, then how do you expect to leverage analytics or AI?
And if there’s no consistent structure to your metadata, then compliance and information governance within your environment becomes increasingly cumbersome, painful, time- consuming and flawed.
The first step to realize the benefits of digital transformation is to start modernizing how you manage information.
2. You can’t deliver engaging customer experiences without it
A Digital Banking survey found that the number one trend was improving the customer journey in financial services organizations.
But it’s clear that most financial institutions are not currently meeting these customers’ expectations, at least not yet: only 37% of organizations have a formal customer experience plan, according to the “Improving the Customer Experience in Banking” report.
This sounds very similar to the digital transformation conundrum explained earlier - and for obvious reasons.
To deliver even a basic customer experience, you need consistent customer information that can be provided across all touchpoints of the business.
However, this simple requirement is still posing huge problems for organizations, with 79% citing an inability to connect information from different systems.
This is a common side effect due to the way in which information has been traditionally managed within the enterprise. Far too often, different systems (each with their own content and data repositories) have sprung up all over the business, leading to a system sprawl that is disjointed, disconnected and often out of control.
Modernization can regain control over this chaos, by providing standardized connectors into the numerous line-of-business (LOB) systems as well as content and file systems currently in use.
3. Your CFO will love you for it
Information management initiatives are traditionally difficult to sell to internal stakeholders. Increased productivity, reduced time searching for information and streamlined processes can all deliver significant benefits, but often are difficult to explain and come with a hefty price tag.
Information management system modernization is different. Modernization comes in two phases: connect and consolidate, with each having different but equally valuable benefits.
The connect phase focuses on rapid integration of the disparate information systems within the business - not looking to ‘rip-and-replace', but instead to leverage the value of the systems already installed.
This can deliver instant benefits with significant savings from reduced search times, increased access to previously locked data. Combined, these result in rapid return on investment (ROI).
The second aspect of modernization is based around consolidation - or the realization that once you have connected the various data and content systems within your enterprise, some older systems can likely be retired.
There can be a number of reasons for this: perhaps they are no longer supported, have expensive maintenance contracts, or require specific hardware or skills to maintain.
Moving away from systems in these circumstances is sensible - but the old rip-and-replace approach placed serious stress on the systems and staff involved in migration projects.
With your information systems connected, migration can be an ongoing process that takes place completely unbeknownst to the users, and on the timescales defined by the business.
The long-term benefit to this approach is that the organization can retire unneeded systems, potentially freeing significant resources and funds accordingly, and ultimately reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).
Related articles