Business information and the bottom line

The UK economy is – once again – 'in recession'.  Times are hard, and service departments and cost centres need to be able to prove that they are directly contributing to the wellbeing of their organisations.  What messages should information professionals share with senior management to demonstrate how business information enhances our organisations?  This was a key question tackled by those attending Aslib’s second Business Information Community of Practice (BICoP) meeting in London this week.

Strategic alignment

It is critical to understand what it is that your organisation values and to ensure that services support these key values.  Do you attend the meetings that mean you know what deals are going on?  Some delegates recommended ‘forcing yourself’ into these meetings until colleagues recognise the value of your attendance!  Provide support for all key business processes from business pitch to deal closure.

Decision makers and influencers

Can you identify all of your organisation’s champions and budget holders?  What processes do you have in place to listen and respond to your organisational clients?  Does the CEO know who you are?  Do you act like ‘other departments’ – do you have a retreat, and a training budget?  

Evidence base

The gathering and broadcasting of real examples of business impact should be a clear imperative.  How are you tracking the beneficial use of data and information provided by your team?  The creation of ‘annual reports’ with statistical information about impact of services is one option discussed.

Risk management

Information management is key to managing both financial and reputational risk.  The cost of non-compliance and under exploitation of resources and poor competitor intelligence should help colleagues focus on the value of BI services.

Quality assured information

The use of quality sources needs to be promoted within the organisation.  Senior partners and colleagues may be using inappropriate free information sources – although not all free resources are necessarily poor quality.  Kitemarking or ‘indemnity assured information sources’ are options.  Information professionals should be driving increased information literacy within their organisations. 

The challenge of demonstrating value is ongoing and should be a constant concern to business information professionals.  This is a subject we can be sure that BICOP will return to in the future as we seek to learn from each other what works – and what doesn’t – in the ongoing battle to help our organisations thrive.

British Library to be an 'Olympic venue'

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is to make the British Library Conference Centre its headquarters throughout the London Olympics later this year.

The conference facilities are centrally located and provide excellent transport links to the Olympic Park. The conference space will be used as offices, a reception area, and a press conference venue.

See the British Library’s press release for more details.

Let's integrate! The 2012 Business Information Survey

Alan Foster has written about this year's Survey for the SLA Europe blog - you can read all about it here.

Introducing 'un-printing' technology

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a process to remove ink from paper using a laser. The technique vaporises printed toner but leaves the paper intact allowing it to be re-used up to three times.

The researchers describe their findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society

More on this story on zdnet.uk

Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones Indexes’ US Index Data Business

The existing collaboration between Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones is to be expanded.
Reuters’s Elektron has been selected to power Dow Jones Indexes, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Elektron will provide a data solution designed to ensure ‘scalability, robustness and performance’ for Dow Jones Indexes’ real-time US index-data business.
For more information see the press release.

Simba predicts STM publishing trends

Simba Information’s latest report Global Professional Publishing 2010-2011 predicts that the global market for professional publishing will grow by 3% in 2012.

The report analyses the global market landscape for STM, legal and business information, breaking down the key trends by publishing activity, segment growth drivers, market size and market share growth.

Key trends identified in the report include:

• Open Access is driving experimentation with new pay models
• Publishers are looking at ways to enhance and add value to content and investing more in software development, search and indexing technology and workflow solutions
• Publishers are still searching for the right approach to copyright protection

The report, which costs $3195, is available from Simba Information.

The Business Information Survey 2012

The 22nd annual Business Information Survey throws interesting light on many of the key information/knowledge management challenges faced by corporations. It is based on in-depth interviews with 22 senior managers in a wide range of industrial sectors, conducted in December 2011 & January 2012. As in previous years, this is a qualitative survey which is designed to produce a readable, narrative account of strategic factors affecting these services and some of the hard choices that are having to be made in a taxing business climate.
This year's respondents are, on the whole, cautious about the likely fortunes of their companies and of the information/knowledge and research units they run. However, there is considerable evidence that they are tackling their managerial challenges with realism, imagination and gusto.
Some of the issues covered by the Survey include:
1. Resourcing: how content and staffing budgets have fared.
2. Progress on the integration of external and internal information
3. The affect of the exponential growth of users' mobile digital devices on information delivery and service support
4. How these information managers handle the issue of working with partners, third parties, individual contractors - and the implications for licensing, vendor relations and support
5. Do they encourage collaboration by managing explicit/tacit knowledge, knowledge silos, communities of practice & systems such as Sharepoint?
6. How does severe organizational turbulence such as from a merger or de-merger affect the IM/KM culture and task?
7. How have their relations with Vendors changed including content licensing, negotiating and service supply issues?
8. Are they using outsourcing and/or offshoring for any IM/KM functions?
9. Search and data mining capabilities in the respondent companies.
10. Are the analytical skills of IS/KM staff being enhanced?
11. What position is the IM/KM function in the company's value chain and how can it add more value?
12. How important are workflow systems in globally distributed information services?
The Business Information Survey 2012 will be in Business Information Review, 29 (1), 2012. Keep an eye out for it on the Sage Publications website and through tweets and alerts nearer the time of publication.

Allan Foster
Information Industry Consultant

allan.foster@gmail.com