Information collection and distribution systems

Politics of Information

The "Money" Aspect of Organizational Communication as a Positive Aspect of an it Strategy

There's a major paradox growing in both manufacturing and service-based companies whose business models rely primarily on rapid, accurate and highly specific customer information in completing transactions. The paradox is that on the one hand there is more pressure than ever to be in compliance to a multitude of industry, federal and local regulations yet on the other, the pace of organizational change is increasing. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) is the most visible of compliance requirements, yet there are literally tens of hundreds of other compliance requirements that organizations must abide by or face stiff fines. Countering this is the need for greater visibility than ever into the operations of companies and their divisions by managers and analyst who are responsible for making sure objectives get accomplished. All the focus on compliance however has created more of a reason to restrict others from gaining access to information that they need to do their jobs. Compliance has become the perfect excuse to not share information internally, and has contributed to the global growth of business outsourcers (Economist 2006). The ultimate irony for the United States' passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is that our legislation is fueling an entire industry that is called upon to deliver both compliance and business process improvement. An entire growth industry has been born out of the politics of information and the compounding affects of politically restricting access to essential information in the name of compliance.

What's driving the perfect storm for the politicization of information are factors that directly impact the ability of companies to attain their business objectives using it-based technologies including applications, processes and people. The fact that so many organizations are having to be cognizant of their use of information as it relates to compliance is just exacerbating the issues of how and when information gets shared. The mantra from CRM implementations is a 360 degree view of the customer, and it seems as if the many efforts to implement Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) in many companies is actively using that approach to make role-based information available to the people who need it at the right time, in the right format, in the correct structure. Here are the areas where SOA early adopters are battling back the politicization of information (LWC Research 2005):

System Integration Over Silos - Clearly a best practice in those companies LWC Research cites in their report value information in the context of service to customers, and this is the primary impetus in them moving to an SOA platform to begin with. Does this solve the politicization of information? In the cases of SOA platform developments, the line-of-business managers want to get the most critical information to the sales reps, service managers and pricing managers so the most profitable decision can be made. In short, yes, SOA platforms are leveling the playing field of politicization of information, and this is one of the primary reasons why SOA growth is so robust in this year, 2007. When this specific issue is applied to the areas of content management, as Columbus and Murphy (2002) have defined, the role of an enterprise content management (ECM) system becomes an arbiter of changing the political dynamics of how information is shared within an organization.

Analytics Layered in - Keeping in mind that the majority of it professionals prefer to view their it platforms from the context of layered model that has a strong focus on integration and pervasive layers of functionality, and the role of an all encompassing layer of analytics begins to take hold. This alone however does not completely negate the issue of the politicization and siloing of information. What analytics layers do however is force the issue of performance from just within one organization and shows the impacts (or lack thereof) of collaboration across the organization. Analytics, when used correctly, should be measures of the performance of departments and divisions working on concert with one another, not on their own. While analytics will not single-handedly lead organizations into a more egalitarian like culture of sharing information, analytics will directly affect the depth and quality of information sharing when shared metrics of performance are in place. Simply put, when two or more departments have a shared interest in the impact of their performance on a single measure of performance, the higher the level of cooperation. Organizations need to do this to break down the politicization of information.

Data Quality Standards and ETL Strategies - as an SOA architecture requires a single continuous, and logically interconnected set of databases if it is to function at the Web Services and process levels, the need for accurate Extraction, Transfer, and Load (ETL) applications and tools are critical. What the implications are for those organizations who have long dismissed requests for more complex and advanced information on any number of sensitive factors including customer defections, warranty defects or the worse yet, injuries from products (as the TREAD Act addresses) now have no excuse to deliver the information. If the needs to be competitive in an increasingly agile and aggressive market don't get a company moving in the direction of a single version of the truth and a greater level of integration between databases, compliance requirements from the federal government will. These initiatives and developments in the context of the democratization of information, and the role of SOAs in making this possible are a side-benefit of globalized competition making information the most critical asset.