The Information Masters Benchmark
(Cross post from www.informationmasters.com)
The Information Masters benchmark evolved from the original Information Masters research dating back to 1996, and first written up in this book. Over time, the underlying assessment framework has been enhanced to take into account emerging issues, new best practices, developing technologies and the evolving business landscape.
For example, the issues noted below have all had a sizable impact on the Information Mastery landscape over the period.
The Internet – Still in its infancy at the beginning of our research, The Internet and ability to utilize it effectively in managing customers is now one of the most significant differentiators of organizational performance.
Data volumes – When the research study began, the worlds largest customer were measured in the tens of Terabytes. Now we wonder if Teradata will have to re-name themselves Petadata……
Moore’s Law – But as data volumes grow, that old faithful law means that data processing remains relatively quick and in-expensive.
Government – Having come late to the party, government across the globe are investing heavily in information-related initiatives. Whilst the ‘kit’ is much the same as in the private sector, their motivations differ.
9/11 – This single event negatively transformed customer expectations of data privacy, the collection and mining of travel related data being most impacted.
Return on Customer – Whilst one of a number of articulations of the need to focus on customer value, the 2005 Peppers and Rogers book clearly set out the importance of this metric to investors as well as to customer managers. Unfortunately, as our benchmark begins to un-pick, few can deliver against this metric in practice.
Mass Deployment of CRM Applications – Some have succeeded, many have failed to meet expectations – all have generated significant amounts of data.
The Benchmark
The benchmark is based on the seven high-level competency areas identified in the original Information Masters research study. These seven areas divide into a further 44 sub-sections of specific practice areas (e.g. Privacy).
The current benchmark is based on 51 assessed organizations. Organizations from multiple sectors (inc Financial Services, Telco, Utility, Publishing and Public Sector) are represented. The benchmark includes organizations from USA, Canada, Europe and Australasia.
Organizations within the benchmark will always be anonymized, unless they grant express permission to be named.
The benchmark, at its current level of evolution can be used to
– Identity specific practices that drive competitive advantage for organizations (versus ‘me too’ activities)
– Draw comparisons between leaders and laggards
As we build up the benchmark over time we will increasingly drill down/ draw comparisons;
– Geography
– Sector
– Other facts that may emerge as differentiators (e.g. channel use, age of organization)
Current benchmark scores in total and across the seven competencies are shown in the table below:
From this current benchmark profile we draw some high level conclusions:
1. In overall terms, organizational ability to become an Information Master has progressed little over the ten year period of our tracking, albeit with much change taking place that impacts on this overall lack of progress.
2. Most organizations have access to plentiful data across the various types required to drive customer management.
3. The ‘softer’ issues around leadership, organization design and driving a data culture remain the most challenging of the competencies, and remain the primary differentiators.
4. The availability of the number and type of people to support information initiatives has improved (however demand still outstrips supply).
5. Organizations have invested heavily in technology over the period, which is good as an enabler; but in of itself is a relatively small component in the Information Mastery jigsaw.
When we begin to look within the seven competencies we can identify some key trends and factors that drive differentiation in organizational performance.
Information
– Organizations now have access to more than they have ever had before.
– Data volumes are growing quickly and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
– Capturing and using unstructured data is a recent challenge (think web 2.0/ user generated content) that organizations have not as yet solved.
– Data quality remains a major challenge; many organizations fail to even define the problem space far less address it successfully.
– The ever-increasing types and volumes of data gathered bring Privacy concerns to the forefront; this will be a key area of differentiation over the coming decade
– Data security problems/ data breaches are an inevitable factor of the current lack of control over data gathering and use; these compound and fuel the privacy issue already noted above.
Leadership
– Business leaders have had to manage significant new complexities through the rise of the Internet, both as opportunity and threat.
– Many new business model options can now be considered, along with more intermediation/ dis-intermediation and new partnering options.
– Driving successful ‘ownership’ of the information capability remains the key challenge
Culture
– Driving a data culture is easier that it was ten years ago as new recruits are more likely to have a grounding in information, and industries overall have learned a lot and become more scientific in their approaches (to customer management) over the period.
– Putting the right measures (as opposed to many non-actionable measures) in place remains a challenge, not helped by increasing organizational complexity.
– Conflicting customer versus product orientations continues to drive an Information Mastery lag in many organizations.
Organization
– Organizations continue to struggle to invest in/ manage Information Mastery as one infrastructure program, and outside of silo-based approached.
– Outsourcing has become a valid option in specific components of information mastery, although one that is not always successfully deployed.
– Too many information programs continue to be deployed via technology function push rather than business user-pull.
People
– How one organizes the specialist support functions that underpin Information mastery is now relatively well understood.
– Scarcity of skilled resource is no longer a critical issue, although demand continues to outstrip supply.
– There is a general trend in place towards pushing information skills out from a core, specialist function to the main business management teams (although a strong, central core remains a critical success factor).
– The tenure and/ or experience of the leader of the information specialists is typically a key differentiator/ enabler of success.
– The best performing organizations have mapped the information requirements of each role and deliver to that spec.
Processes
– Business processes are increasingly differentiated by how well they tap into the underlying information assets and infrastructure; specific processes such as dynamic pricing require real time access to multiple types of data.
– Strategic and operational analytics have evolved considerably over the period.
– Many organizations continue to struggle with the bundling of products and services into the ‘solutions’ which customers often demand.
– The optimization of Marketing and Selling activity is the focus of much current effort and expenditure – much tactical success can be seen but strategic improvement remains questionable.
Technology
– Technology development continues to outpace organizational ability to successfully deploy it.
– Major advances have been made through the availability of CDI/ MDM (Customer Data Integration/ Master Data Management) technologies; these tool-sets (solutions) recognize the multi-threaded, typically cross-organizational nature of the underlying problems being addressed.
– Advances in Business Intelligence (BI) tools have improved data access across organizations (although if not addressed as a data culture issue this can create more problems that it solves).
– Hosted applications and business models aid/ simplify deployment; but are only truly successful if supported by a well planned information infrastructure recognizing the specific nature of working with a hosted environment.