Information as an Asset

Information asset management is more than the collection and dissemination of data. It is an ongoing discipline required to nurture an organization's information asset in the same way that other assets need to be managed.

Human capital management is often the primary focus in professional services firms where ideas and innovation are the competitive product. In manufacturing companies where low cost and efficient production provides the edge, capital asset management is critical. Information asset design and management develops information assets in the same way that a professional services firm develops its people, or a manufacturing company maintains its property, plant and equipment.

These organizations match their needs over time through timely investment in the asset and ensuring the quality and uninterrupted availability of raw materials. The same principles apply for information assets, where the raw materials are data.

Most organizations are not starting from scratch. Their data has grown unsystematically, with structured and unstructured data acquired, stored, transformed, and delivered through equally unsystematically engineered processes and procedures. Information policies are often contradictory or may not exist. In one part of the business, a "customer" may mean something very different than a "customer" in another part of the business. Product codes could lack uniformity across business units, impeding visibility on product profitability across regions, channels or other yardsticks. These are situations where information asset management is most needed.

Information asset management applies a discipline for investment, management and maintenance of data, bolstered with the necessary governance structures to ensure compromises are made when necessary to deliver business value. We advise our clients on all related specialties:

• Taxonomy and Ontology

• Reference data

• Master data

• Data Governance

• Business Intelligence

• Performance Management

• Data Architecture

When information is treated as a strategic asset, the returns will manifest in latent discoveries about customers, operations, and markets.

Client Impact

Sagence Group has helped our clients design and start enterprise-wide information asset management programs, resulting in information platforms that support ongoing and future business strategies.

• A Fortune 100 global communications leader needed to create an ongoing capability to provide globally standardized information within and across business units, functions, and regions to enable more efficient and effective decision making. Our efforts led to a clear vision on how to best manage, access, and govern data within and across the corporation to provide timely, comprehensive, high-quality, rationalized information. Read more…

• A $40 billion food company, which grew through acquisitions, required a Master Data strategy and roadmap to implement this strategy globally. The organization viewed global Master Data as a necessary foundation for it to compete in maturing markets and to grow globally. Read more…

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