BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

ASSIGNMENT 02
Roll no. CC 533287 Ahmad Murtaza
 Introduction of the topic

In a nutshell, information management (IM) is making sure that the right people have the right
information at the right time. But there’s a lot that goes into making that happen: Data needs to be
processed, contextualized, tagged, and analyzed in order to become useful information. This article
discusses information management in a business environment and its background, reviews best
practices, and examines how raw data becomes information. Plus, you’ll hear from experts about
planning and strategy to set up an IM programImproving information management practices is a key
focus for many organizations, across both the public and private sectors. This is being driven by a
range of factors, including a need to improve the efficiency of business processes, the demands of
compliance regulations and the desire to deliver new services.

In many cases, ‘information management’ has meant deploying new technology solutions, such as
content or document management systems, data warehousing or portal applications. These projects
have a poor track record of success, and most organizations are still struggling to deliver an
integrated information management environment. Effective information management is not easy.
There are many systems to integrate, a huge range of business needs to meet, and complex
organizational (and cultural) issues to address.

‘Information management’ is an umbrella term that encompasses all the systems and processes
within an organization for the creation and use of corporate information.

Important sub topics

What Is Information Management?

In the 1970s, information management began to emerge from data management as virtual media
began to overtake physical media (punch cards, magnetic tapes, paper, etc.). As PCs started to
replace mainframes as the primary computing platform in the 80s, and as networked systems came
to prominence in the 90s, information management came into its own.

The definition of information management is constantly evolving as the technology, ideas, and
business needs change. IM can encompass a cycle of organizational activities: gathering data,
analyzing, categorizing, contextualizing, and archiving (and in some cases, deleting it), in order to
support a business’ needs. This means that data and information have a lifecycle: It’s useful for a
period of time, but at some point it’s no longer valuable.

Like any other business practice, IM incorporates general management concepts, such as planning,
controlling, and execution. Information management also includes data management and its
associated activities. Data management is the development and implementation of tools and
policies that allow data to progress from stage to stage during its lifecycle.

Information management has four main components.

People: Not only those involved in IM, but also the creators and users of data and information.
Policies and Processes: The rules that determine who has access to what, steps for how to store and
secure information must be stored and secured, and timeframes for archiving or deleting.

Technology: The physical items (computers, filing cabinets, etc.) that store data and information,
and any software used.

Data and Information: What the rest of the components use.

Practical aspects with respect to the topic?

Whereas individuals use business productivity software such as word processing, spreadsheet, and
graphics programs to accomplish a variety of tasks, the job of managing a company’s information
needs falls to management information systems: users, hardware, and software that support
decision-making. Information systems collect and store the company’s key data and produce the
information managers need for analysis, control, and decision-making.

Factories use computer-based information systems to automate production processes and order and
monitor inventory. Most companies use them to process customer orders and handle billing and
vendor payments. Banks use a variety of information systems to process transactions such as
deposits, ATM withdrawals, and loan payments. Most consumer transactions also involve
information systems. When you check out at the supermarket, book a hotel room online, or
download music over the internet, information systems record and track the transaction and
transmit the data to the necessary places.

Companies typically have several types of information systems, starting with systems to process
transactions. Management support systems are dynamic systems that allow users to analyze data to
make forecasts, identify business trends, and model business strategies. Office automation systems
improve the flow of communication throughout the organization. Each type of information system
serves a particular level of decision-making: operational, tactical, and strategic. (Figure) shows the
relationship between transaction processing and management support systems as well as the
management levels they serve. Let’s take a more detailed look at how companies and managers use
transaction processing and management support systems to manage information.

Transaction Processing Systems

A firm’s integrated information system starts with its transaction processing system (TPS). The TPS
receives raw data from internal and external sources and prepares these data for storage in a
database similar to a microcomputer database but vastly larger. In fact, all the company’s key data
are stored in a single huge database that becomes the company’s central information resource. As
noted earlier, the database management system tracks the data and allows users to query the
database for the information they need.

A Company’s Integrated Information System

The database can be updated in two ways: batch processing, where data are collected over some
time period and processed together, and online, or real-time, processing, which processes data as
they become available. Batch processing uses computer resources very efficiently and is well-suited
to applications such as payroll processing that require periodic rather than continuous processing.
Online processing keeps the company’s data current. When you make an airline reservation, the
information is entered into the airline’s information system, and you quickly receive confirmation,
typically through an e-mail. Online processing is more expensive than batch processing, so
companies must weigh the cost versus the benefit. For example, a factory that operates around the
clock may use real-time processing for inventory and other time-sensitive requirements but process
accounting data in batches overnight.
 Decisions, Decisions: Management Support Systems

Transaction processing systems automate routine and tedious back-office processes such as
accounting, order processing, and financial reporting. They reduce clerical expenses and provide
basic operational information quickly. Management support systems (MSS) use the internal master
database to perform high-level analyses that help managers make better decisions.

Information technologies such as data warehousing are part of more advanced . A data warehouse
combines many databases across the whole company into one central database that supports
management decision-making. With a data warehouse, managers can easily access and share data
across the enterprise to get a broad overview rather than just isolated segments of information.
Data warehouses include software to extract data from operational databases, maintain the data in
the warehouse, and provide data to users. They can analyze data much faster than transaction-
processing systems. Data warehouses may contain many data marts, special subsets of a data
warehouse that each deal with a single area of data. Data marts are organized for quick analysis.

Companies use data warehouses to gather, secure, and analyze data for many purposes, including
customer relationship management systems, fraud detection, product-line analysis, and corporate
asset management. Retailers might wish to identify customer demographic characteristics and
shopping patterns to improve direct-mailing responses. Banks can more easily spot credit-card fraud,
as well as analyze customer usage patterns.

According to Forrester Research, about 60 percent of companies with $1 billion or more in revenues
use data warehouses as a management tool. Union Pacific (UP), a $19 billion railroad, turned to data
warehouse technology to streamline its business operations. By consolidating multiple separate
systems, UP achieved a unified supply-chain system that also enhanced its customer service. “Before
our data warehouse came into being we had stovepipe systems,” says Roger Bresnahan, principal
engineer. “None of them talked to each other. . . . We couldn’t get a whole picture of the railroad.”

UP’s data warehouse system took many years and the involvement of 26 departments to create. The
results were well worth the effort: UP can now make more accurate forecasts, identify the best
traffic routes, and determine the most profitable market segments. The ability to predict seasonal
patterns and manage fuel costs more closely has saved UP millions of dollars by optimizing
locomotive and other asset utilization and through more efficient crew management. In just three
years, Bresnahan reports, the data warehouse system had paid for itself.

Review of theoretical and practical situation

In other words: even if we recognize that information is an asset and even if we understand that it
needs to be secured accordingly, we all too often both underestimate the real importance of
information and still don’t take all security measures it more than deserves.

Merits
The Information Management Project Board discussed the benefits of good IM and asked IMLG
(Information Managers Leaders Group) to contribute their ideas.

The final list has seven headings:

• Improved leverage/ ROI of the organisation's technology investments

• Improved leverage/ ROI of 3rd party information products across the whole organisation

• Increased efficiency - right information/ right time

• Improved effectiveness/ performance - right information/right time

• Sustained responsiveness and competitiveness

• Enhanced creativity and innovation

• Ensured Compliance (Legal and regulatory)

Improved leverage/ROI of the organisation’s technology investments

• Reduced costs of information processing – saves money

• Supports a better focused investment in IT - improves ROI on information investment

• Better information storage, sharing and re-use of knowledge and information saves time and
money

• Reduces time and effort expended on searching for and managing information; combined
with increased ability to find data. – relieves pressure on time/resources

Improved leverage/ROI of 3rd party information products across the whole organisation

• Slick information flows improve efficiency of processes and faster responses

• Evidence base (intellectual and structural capital) improves in quality and is accessible and
exploitable

• Organisation and staff achieve more through ready access to knowledge and information,
producing quicker response times and increasing capability

Increased Efficiency – right information/right time

• Drives efficiency and service improvement

• Leads to faster and more efficient decision-making inside and outside organisations by
ability to exploit existing knowledge and information.

• Saves time and costs through re-using information and replicating best practice

• Reduces/eliminates duplication of effort; avoiding “reinventing the wheel”.

• Reduces waste and improves value for money; Do more with the same/less

• Fosters a professional approach to business processes

Improved Effectiveness / performance -– right information/right time

• Increased capability – to exploit information capital – to plan and perform effectively

 • Better management decision making - enables faster, more informed (evidence based)
decisions

• Increased enterprise agility and responsiveness to potential changes and challenges

• Enables better intelligence on customers, improves responsiveness to customers, and

improves customer perceptions /reputation

• Achieves better outcomes helped by the use of appropriate information and improving
information flows

• Improves performance through information sharing and collaboration between staff and
teams and stakeholders

• Supports professional networks across organisations and with external contacts

• Creates an engaged and motivated workforce

• Reduces information overload

Sustained responsiveness and competitiveness

• Easy access to and improved ways of working with information enables a faster, more
flexible and proactive response to external factors

• Provides correct context for business improvement activity

Enhanced creativity and Innovation

• Innovation in products and services stimulated through access to information and informed
collaboration

• Information stimulates the creativity and innovation that the economy and society need for
progress.

• Information easily explored for new insights – leveraging information assets

Ensured Compliance (Legal and regulatory)

• Relevant information is protected and shared appropriately and accountability is enhanced.

• Improved information protection

• Information quality assured – fitness for purpose

• Effective management and reduction of information risk

• Corporate memory safeguarded

• Keeps you out of trouble - essential for regulated industries / activities; important for
internal governance and compliance activity

• Minimises reputational risk and facilitates openness

 Demerits

1. Highly sensitive requires constant monitoring.

2. Buddgeting of MIS extremely difficult.

3. Quality of outputs governed by quality of inputs.

4. Lack of flexibility to update it.

5. Effectiveness decreases due to frequent changes in top management

6. Takes into account only qualitative factors and ignores non-qualitative factors like morale of
worker, attitude of worker etc...

An information system (IS) - or application landscape - is any combination of information technology

and people's activities using that technology to support operations, management, and decision-
making. In a very broad sense, the term information system is frequently used to refer to the
interaction between people, algorithmic processes, data and technology. In this sense, the term is
used to refer not only to the information and communication technology (ICT) an organization uses,
but also to the way in which people interact with this technology in support of business processes.

Alter argues for an information system as a special type of work system. A work system is a system in
which humans and/or machines perform work using resources (including ICT) to produce specific
products and/or services for customers. An information system is a work system whose activities are
devoted to processing (capturing, transmitting, storing, retrieving, manipulating and displaying)
information.

Recommendations

support a research program to explore how to provide flexible and open systems with appropriate
security protections. The apparent conflict between openness and protection is not a matter of
balance or trade-off, but rather of providing strong forms of both attributes.

Adapt existing or develop new methods and tools that facilitate capture and traceability of HSI
design objectives, design rationale, and constraints across design phases. Specifically:

1. Develop shared representations that effectively communicate how the output of one design
activity meets the objectives, design rationale, constraints, and design implications
uncovered in the prior design phase.

2. Develop shared representations that effectively communicate essential design

characteristics and their rationale that can be interpreted and used by multiple system
development stakeholders—including individuals that did not participate in earlier design
activities (see Wampler et al., 2006, for an example of an effort toward this goal).
3. Adapt existing and develop new software tools to support traceability and update as
changes arise in later design phases that require updates to outputs of earlier design phases.

4. Adapt existing and develop new tools and techniques for explicitly connecting HSI objectives
and design implications to higher level system requirements tracked in formal system
requirements tracking systems. This is important to ensure explicit links between HSI design
objectives and system-level requirements that reflect contractual commitments.

5. Adapt existing and develop new methods for generating scenarios that reflect the range of
complexities uncovered by context of use analyses. This corpus of scenarios can be used to
support development and evaluation of designs, procedures, and training, including human
reliability and safety analyses. They could also be used to exercise models and simulations as
part of the system development process. The goal would be to ensure that the systems have
been explicitly designed and tested to support performance across a comprehensive range
of representative situations, as identified by context of use analyses. Context of use
scenarios are also essential to the meaningful definition of such key performance
parameters as response time, reliability, and accuracy.

6. Develop methods to identify meaningful human (and joint person-computer system)

performance metrics that can provide the basis for objective system acceptance criteria. This
is important to encourage incorporating HSI objectives as part of formal contractual.