Managing Information

The ability to gather and process large amounts of business information is fairly recent. Businesses used to spend a lot of money doing all kinds of things and collect a lot more money. If there was some left over when it was all added up, the business was successful. With more information, we can not only tell if the business as a whole is successful; we can analyze each business line and even individual business processes.

The key is to know what information to gather and how to use it. You don't want to spend all your time managing information flow - you want to use specific information to manage your business more efficiently.

To see how this works, we have to separate management and information. First, manage your business to set goals and determine what information is needed. Then gather the information. Finally, use the information to achieve your goals.

Keeping inventory to cover the needs of your customers is a basic business process. Reducing the inventory to a minimum while still achieving adequate coverage is management. The purchasing cycles and history of your customers is information which is needed to achieve this goal. Gathering and using this information to minimize inventory is information management.

The above is pretty basic and many businesses do just that. Here's something most don't do:

Marketing your products is a basic business process. Targeting those customers who need your product is good management. Which customers have bought the product and when it will be used up or become obsolete is information which will allow you to target customers more effectively. Gathering and using this type of information is becoming more common as information management becomes more widespread.

You can read more on information management in this article from DMR.

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