General Information Management

Information system concerns with the organizational activity cycle of a company or institution.

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General Information Management

Information Management contains all the all the cycles of organizational activity, i.e

Information management contains all the concepts of generic management which includes:

Information management generally is closely related to and overlaps in management of data, systems, technology and processes.



D.I.K.A.R. model


D.I.K.A.R. model in information system management consists of five components. They are:



General Information Management in bigger picture


While positioning Information Management in bigger picture, Venkatraman, argued that:



How to manage information well ?



Information managent knowledge areas

The information management body of knowledge shows that the required management competencies which would derive real benefits by investing in information are complex and multilayered.

The six areas where general information management requires competencies are as follows:

Information Technology
In Information technology we constantly require change and the pressure to aqquire new technological products could undermine the stability if the infrastructure that supports the information system. This enables more optimization in business processes and deliver benefits. Technology can be seen as commodity here and it is necessary to manage the supply side.
Information System
In the past most of the information system was developed in-house, however, these days the most of the software of information management system can be attained from software package industry. That is not to say there aren't any advantages of builing in-house sofwares for information systems.
Business process and Business information
When information systems are applied to business processes in order to improve them, they bring data to the business which are used as business information. Business process management is seen as a somewhat new decipline and is not adopted universally. And in most cases business information management is more difficult.
Business benefit
In business benefits it is not only required to be burtally honestof what can be achieved but also the active management and assessment of the benefits being delivered. Due to popular use of business scorecard, there is a spike in interest in business performance management, however, hardly any efforts has been made to relate the business performance management to benefits in investements in information technology.
Business Strategy
Business Strategy in most organisation has to be informed by information technology and information system opportunities. Strategic tools such as value chain and critical sucesss factor analysis directly depend upon information system that can be managed.



Information management process

It is generally argued that things can still go wrong, even with full competency and capability of six knowledge areas. The main problem lies in the migration of ideas and information management value from one area of competency to another. When summarising the other factors we have following points to consider:

Projects
Information technology is valueless unless and until it is engineered into information systems that meets the needs of the business by the means of good project management.
Business Change
Information System often succeed in delivering benefits to the business by changing the business system itself. This change is usually not welcomed by people. The people make new demands upon their skills in ways information system often do.
Business Operations
Even when the information system extends far beyond the boundries of businesses, these businesses still able to work with the new systems in place, staff ready to work, business system and business information improved.
Performance Mangement
These days investment are no longer only about finantial results. Since if the organisation is only good in financial results, the results are not sustainable in long term. Financial success must be balanced with customer satifaction, internal efficiency along with organizational learning and development.



Operationalising in information management

Organisations are often confronted with huge organisational change when implementing new forms of information management. These changes may bring a more of unccepetance towards new forms of information and information management. Sometimes these changes are not supported by top-level management and eventually are not accepted by the organisation. There could also be a political motivation for not accepting new reforms regarding information management or there might be too much of a learning curve while adapting to new information management system. Even with all these factors involved, inclusion of information management reaps a lot of benefits to organization.




Early work of Galbraith

Jay Galbraith has identified five tacticle areas over which information processing capacity should be concentrated on, which would reduce the need of information processing. These are as follows: