Chapter 1: Introduction to Information Management

Objectives and outcomes

- Overall objective:
To define the relationship between, and importance of, data, information, knowledge
and information systems to the modern organization
- Learning outcomes:
o Explain how information management delivers value to an organization
o Demonstrate the relationship between data, information and knowledge
o Indentify key management issues of information and knowledge management

Management issues

- Typical questions facing managers related to this topic:

o How do we leverage information to increase organizational efficiency and
competitiveness?
o How can we harness the knowledge within our organization?

Information in today’s organization

- The information overload

Table: Worldwide production of original information, if stored digitally
Storage 2002 2002 1999-2000 1999-2000 % Change
Medium Terabytes Terabytes Upper Lower Upper
Upper Lower Estimate Estimate Estimate
Estimate Estimate
Paper 1,634 327 1,200 240 36%
Film 420,254 74,202 431,690 58,209 -3%
Magnetic 4,999,230 3,416,230 2,779,760 2,073,760 80%
Optical 103 51 81 29 28%
Total 5,421,221 3,416,281 3,212,731 2,132,238 69%

Data and information defined

Data
= Discrete, objective facts about events. Data are transformed into information by
adding value through context, calculations, categorization and condensation

Information
= Organized data, meaningful and contextually relevant. Used for decision making

Knowledge
= The combination of data and information to which is added expert opinion, skills
and experience to result in a valuable asset which can be used to make decisions

- Data and information are no synonyms

o Data:

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 o Unprocessed facts and observations
o Represented by symbols (numbers, words, codes, …)
o Information:
o Meaningful data
o Transformed data
o Provides answers to questions, meaningful to the users

Information is created from data

Data

Data Processing Information

Data

- Characteristics of “good” data / information:

o Complete
o Accuracy, correctness
o Timeliness
o Consistency
o Validity, verifiable, reliable
o Accessible
o Relevant
o Economical
o Uniqueness
o Above all, well structured

The data-information-knowledge transformation process

Transformation process
Business Collection Da- Tranforma- Infor- Applicatio Know-
event process ta tion process mation n process ledge

Type of information
- Business event: individual passenger booking
- Data: total flight utilization
- Information: utilization by route
- Knowledge: analysis and action taking

Example of data / information / knowledge

- Business event: M. Francas → from Barcelona (BCN) to Paris (CDG); Flight IB424
- Data: Barcelona (BCN) to Paris (CDG) airport; Flight IV424; Bookings: 98; Capacity:
175
- Information: BCN to CDG = 80%
- Knowledge: compare to industry, company norms for this route / time and suggest
solutions to enhance utilization

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The 4 C’s of Information Transformation

- Context:
Displaying a data item relative to other data items, such as in a time series or trend
graph. Sorting data alphabetically or numerically is another example of
contextualisation
- Calculation:
Producing derived metrics such as calculating a percentage capacity utilisation
- Classification or categorization:
Grouping information into different categories, e.g all flights into a particular country
- Condensation:
Aggregating or totalling information is always important in presenting business event
data as summary information. For example, total sales on a route. Filtering is also
used to summarise information, for example, ‘show me all flights that were delayed
by at least 2 hours

Information in today’s organization

- Organizations have to counter the information overload by improving information

quality by techniques such as:
o Aggregating: the ‘big’ picture is presented by summing up individual data
items
o Summarizing: an abstract of a technical report is one form of summarizing
o Filtering: less relevant information can be removed
o Alerting: messages are displayed on-screen or sent via e-mail to alert
managers to a newsworthy piece of information

The data-information-knowledge transformation process

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Knowledge defined

English (1999) builds on his definition of information to define knowledge as follows:

o Knowledge is not just information known, it is information in context
o Knowledge means understanding the significance of the information
o Knowledge is the value added to information by people who have the
experience and acumen to understand its real potential
o Knowledge has value only to the extent that people are empowered to act
based on that knowledge. In other words, knowledge has value only when
acted on

Benefits of Business Information Management

Information can deliver a contribution in several ways:

o Add value
o Improved products
o Detecting trends
o Reduce cost
o Manage risks
o Create a new reality

Information and business value

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The Information Lifecycle model

Capture
Destroy Organize

Maintain Process

Information in today’s organization

Data corruption, some reasons:

o Hardware problems
o Operating System
o Applications
o Data corruption at the data source
o Birth – death – conversion / moving
o Fraud
o …

How important is Information Management?

Table: Occurrences of information related concepts in web pages indexed by Google.

May 2004
Information concept Phrase anywhere on page Phrase in title of page (in
phrase title:)
“Information Management” 4,000,000 325,000
“Knowledge Management” 3,200,000 135,000
“Information Systems” 6,800,000 451,000
“Information Technology” 7,800,000 766,000

Why Business Information Management?

- Where is the emphasis?

- Where should it be?
- Information TECHNOLOGY
INFORMATION Technology
→ The stress should be on the ‘I’ rather than the ‘T’ in ‘IT’ (Davenport, 2000)
- Peter Drucker stressed the importance of information to organizational
competitiveness in 1993 when he wrote:
“The industries that have moved into the centre of the economy in the last 40 years,
have as their business, the production and the distribution of knowledge and
information rather than the production and distribution of things.”

- Organizations have no difficulties with managing the traditional resources / assets:

o Financial resources (working capital)

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 o Infrastructure
o Human resources

- Organizations have more problems with managing the non-traditional resources /

assets:
o Data
o Information

- Huge amount of data ↔ scarce information

- Key management questions to be discussed:

o How do I improve information quality?
o How do I manage information overload?
o How much do I invest in information systems?
o How do I select hardware, software, applications?
o How should we protect organizational information?
o How can organizational information be managed?
o How is change managed?
o How are information systems structured?
o How can information systems support the business?
o What are the legal and ethical constraints on information management?

- Some challenges:
o Relevancy
o How do we find information relevant to our decisions?
o Accessibility
o How do organizations make relevant information available to
employees and business partners through computer applications, web
and e-mail?
o Legality
o How do organizations ensure they are using customer, employee and
market information in accordance with legal and ethical standards?
o Security
o How do we protect this information from accidental or deliberate
threats?
o Value:
o How can this information help organizations reach their business
objectives?

- Four major themes spread over 3 years:

o Introduction
o How do we select the appropriate hardware and software technologies
and standards for information management?
o Strategy
o How do we create strategies to resource and control information flows
and usage within the organization for effective delivery of value?
o Implementation

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 o How do we manage the project and the impact of change on staff within
our organization associated with the introduction of new ways using
information and new technologies?
o Management
o How do we use technology and people resources to continually
improve the quality of information and information services within an
organization while meeting legal and ethical requirements?

What is Business Information Management?

The process of actively managing information as a strategic resource for improving

organizational performance.
This process involves developing strategies and introducing systems and controls to
improve information quality to deliver value.

Fundamentals of Information Management

The 3 stands of Business Information Management (Information, People and

Technology resources)

 Chair!!!!! (Business Information Management) (p.19 book)

Information resources
Elements Related concepts
Data - Information quality - Records management
Information - Transformation process - Information lifecycle
Knowledge - System theory - Information orientation
- Information types

People resources
Elements Related concepts
Employees - Information orientation
Customers - Perception or information quality
Suppliers - Responsibilities, structure and organization culture
Government - Skills development
- Developing strategies
- Legal contraints

Technology resources
Elements Related concepts
Software applications - The productivity paradox
Systems software - E-commerce and e-business
Technology infrastructure - Informatics
Hardware
Telecommunications