There is an urgent need for business information management to be a crucial aspect of management training for executives in any kind of business or any size and in any location. This is a largely ignored aspect of management training with everyone leaving it to IT or information management professionals to deal with what the business needs, what it needs to spend and what it can expect. This will always result in outcomes being attached to output, in this case financial. But there is a fundamental component that is missing and it is time that it was noticed and replaced.
Messy, unstructured computer networks do nothing to support productivity and economic viability or encourage success for the average small, medium and large business. They are also a potential source of business degradation for large companies and government. Messy, unstructured information renders the business unsafe and unmanageable and messy unstructured information masked by document management systems and clever search functions are putting the business at risk, reducing its effectiveness and leaving it without the means to exploit the power of policy, training, resources and business knowledge.
Most business owners and managers are capable of setting out the rules by which their business information is managed but are unaware of both the need to do this and its relationship to their management role. They know they are capable of understanding the needs of the business but are not aware of the benefits of information structure and control. There are limits to their view of what is really available to them by controlling their precious but undervalued business information.