Information Maturity (Waaaaaaah!!!)
OK, the state of information maturity—how well organizations monetize, manage and measure their information assets—may not be worth throwing a tantrum over (or “spitting the dummy” for those you Down Under). But when compared to the rigor and process and discipline with which other “balance sheet” assets are managed, measured and monetized, the attention paid to information assets pales. baby-crying-in-cap-information
Just imagine for a moment a manufacturer that decides not to sell some of its products, just leaving them in the warehouse. Or imagine a retailer with no inventory of what’s on its store shelves; an accountant who has no way to gauge the company’s financial position; or an HR executive with no process for measuring employee performance. Ridiculous right? Well that’s more or less the state of information monetization, management and measurement today.
Only in the past few years have we seen the welcome emergence of an executive role specifically for tending to information: the chief data officer (CDO). This is 60 or 70 years since the rise of the chief financial officer, 30 or so years since chief human resource officers started appearing, and about 20 years since chief risk/security officers started being anointed.
Yes chief information officers (CIOs) have been in place for decades, but their purview has been tilted toward the monetization, management and measurement of technologies. (Behind their backs, CIOs are referred to as chief infrastructure officers.) Information’s role has been relegated to an input and an output–at worst a byproduct, and at best a resource. But not a true asset.
However, digital business and analytics in particular have rendered it ever-more vital to the organization, intensifying the need for effective enterprise information rigor. This should have elevated the role of information to another economic asset. Yet data and analytics leaders such as the CDO struggle to make the case and therefore struggle to improve the organization’s information maturity.
