Return on Information - the age of intelligent information management

May 15, 2018
  • operations
  • IT
  • OpenText
  • intelligent apps

Knowledge is power. That was the message philosopher and pioneer Francis Bacon sought to share with humanity over 500 years ago. As such, our customers often distinguish themselves from their competitors with the knowledge and specialist know-how they have accumulated. However, it appears that they have no explicit support system in place to maintain and expand their knowledge or to optimise the exploitation of this information. This is characterised by the presence of outdated systems stemming from the 90s, or the absence of faith in the capabilities of new systems that can truly help make life (at work) easier. What should organisations do to put their knowledge to good use?

In a series of three blogposts, we will answer the question: how is it that information management initiatives have such a high rate of failure, and how can delaware provide the solution that will work? The first part will emphasise today’s situation, before looking forward to the future in part 2 and drawing up ‘the game plan’ in part 3.

Information overload

More than 80% of all corporate information begins as unstructured data, primarily text. Research conducted by Gartner has shown that 25% of all “archived” information is never recovered. To top it off, IDC research has shown that as much as 20% of our time is lost in the search for the right version of the right document. There’s ample reason to think of a system that does work, and there’s no shortage of motivation either.

In recent decades, the concept of information management has gone through various stages of evolution. Driven by the paperless ideology of the 90s, we all started digitising and archiving documents using document management applications. In the mid-2000s, the realisation that optimising document organisation and the surrounding processes could increase efficiency led to birth of so-called content management.

The current situation

Despite many initiatives, information management is still seen as an isolated field, unlinked to process applications. This is an old-school vision that reinforces the notion that users should adapt to systems, instead of the other way round. A commonly made mistake is choosing technology because of the technology itself, rather than its ability to solve a business challenge. 

It goes without saying that end users in the age of smart refrigerators and never-ending mobile applications have different expectations. For employees, it is key to find information that is as complete and fast as possible. This means that they want access to all information at all times, regardless of the location of the information or the user, tailored to the context of what they’re doing at that precise moment.

Intelligent Information Management

How amazing would it be if you could access structured data from CRM, ERP as well as unstructured data, including e-mails and documents, on your preferred device, such as a PC, tablet, or telephone, with the push of a button? An even better solution would allow employees to choose to have information presented on the basis of their own preferences. The age of intelligent information management is here!

Intelligent Information Management is a step towards an information system in which employees do not just input information, but are also able to use available information to optimise their efficiency. Intelligent Information Management does not just involve automatic content classification: the system must also understand the context of content. For example: At which lifecycle stage is the document? Is it an urgent document? Do special authorisations need to be linked to the document?

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