Many organisations recognise the importance of Information Management (IM) and are
implementing it into the structure and culture of their organisation and the roles of their
managers and employees. More and more, organisations are thinking and operating
strategically - their very survival depends on information. Information is the lifeblood of
an organisation. An essential part of any business strategy is consideration of how
information systems strategy supports change. Experts agree that information
management has become a competitive necessity for all types of companies. The
organisations that will succeed in the global information environment are those that can
identify the value of information. One of the biggest problems facing managers today at
all levels is the problem of investing in and using technology efficiently, especially
Information Technology (IT). Business intelligence enables organisations to make well
informed business decisions and thus can be the source of competitive advantages.
This is especially true when companies are able to extrapolate information from
indicators in the external environment and make accurate forecasts about future trends
or economic conditions. Business intelligence becomes a top initiative and investment
priority for Chief lnformation Officers (CIOs) and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs).
This dissertation addressed the need to identify the most important information
management components as a foundation for the more in-depth discussion on
information management principles and best practices in broad base industries. The
elements of information management that appear the most frequent in the literature
study indicate that authors place high priority on the following components: • Information security • Information management governance • IT standardisation • Regulatory requirements for information management • Business intelligence • Virtual collaboration • Management of service outsourcing • Selection of service providers • Project management • Change management • Risk management • Asset management • Knowledge management • Business processes • Balanced scorecard • Benchmarking • Competitive Intelligence • Business partnering. The empirical study was conducted in six phases. The first phase consisted of
establishing a framework of information management best practices in broad base
industries and the second phase was to develop a preliminary measuring instrument to
investigate the perceptions of the sampling population on information management best
practices. Phase three consisted of a pilot study in the development of a questionnaire.
Phase four was to investigate perceptions of information management best practices in
broad base industries. The analysis model was developed based on the criteria
evaluated using advanced statistical procedures. The five most important components
of information management that were identified were Business processes, Information
security, Business intelligence, Risk management, and Information management
governance. The best practices for these five most important components of information
management were also identified. The five highest ranking best practices were: Virus
control implemented; Information management strategy aligned with business goals;
Documented business processes; Risk management framework implemented; and
Support and training in place. Phase five was to describe the results of the empirical
study for information management best practices in broad base industries, Phase six
was to compare the perception what the information management best practices are as
perceived by companies from broad base industries. The most uniform perception was
identified for the information management component 'Business Intelligence'. On
average, it was rated almost equally by all participants. On the other hand, there is a
significant difference in perception from all industry segments and the whole industry for
'Risk Management'. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/1564 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Pejanovic, Trivko |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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