Tom Davenport: Are You Getting the Information You Need When You Need It?

Delivered Innovation has been doing a lot of work in the area of incorporating analytics into the systems and business processes that we design for the Force.com platform, so Mr. Davenport’s insights into how organizations consume and process information are interesting.  The first question of this recent post is indicative of a common issue we see in organizations: “How fast do you really need your information?” While the mantra may be, “More, more, more,” it’s important to take a step back and really think through how we need to be prioritizing our data streams in this age of information bombardment.

Five key points:

There are many reasons why information comes slowly and inflexibly. Some involve valid business reasons…others are less defensible, including technologies that don’t allow for rapid information access and display.

Not surprisingly, the state of the economy (as well as whether the company is experiencing a crisis or not) is a major determining factor in organizations’ information needs.

…survey respondents across industries clearly stated that some types of information are required more quickly than others. In terms of what information executives currently receive, the fastest to arrive (combining real time and daily frequencies) are sales and news on competitors and customers. The slowest to arrive (i.e., the information is received annually or quarterly) are employee satisfaction, market share, customer satisfaction, and planning scenarios or simulations.

In terms of the information that survey respondents wanted (as opposed to what they currently receive), the categories desired at the highest frequency are competitor news, sales, and news about customers. The information types needed least fast are market share, employee satisfaction, planning simulations or scenarios, and employee productivity and performance.

These results suggest that it is not desirable — even if it were feasible — to make all information available in real time.