Structuring Your Information Management

Data management is one of the core aspects to information management. This is because data management looks at the larger databases which most businesses are running off rather than the applications used to run them. As CRM systems are now set to include the whole process of data governance. The CRM will be able to record everything about a piece of data from a file creation and its use within the organisation including modifications through to its deletion.

Content management is a more recent concept in information management. Any unstructured data would be categorised through your content management. Out of all the data within any given organisations on average around 85% of it will be unstructured. Unstructured data is anything that isn’t held in a specific template or application and is typically word and excel docs as well as online and email content. Unstructured data is set to become more common over the next few years as eCollaboration and virtual working becomes more popular.

Business intelligence is the corporate memory of your organisation. The underlying principle of business intelligence is being able the data produced from your business and use it to benefit your organisation. That information is usually gathered and stored in a data warehouse. An example of this could be asset tracking software. By tracking your fixed assets you can pin point who is responsible for them as well as their depreciation. The business benefit in this instance would be the time your save in the event of an insurance claim.

Tracking the data from a single point of view like that of a customer is master data management. Tracking where a single customer came from would be one example of master data management as you’d be able to use the data to attribute whether they’re a sales or marketing lead and who gets the credit.

The easiest way to determine whether you have clean accurate data is to look at your decision making process within your organisation.