|
The Next Revolution: Information Democracy
PerkinElmer changes both technology and culture to achieve successful information management
By Matthew Dattilo
Optimize
December 2004, Issue 38
As information-savvy executives, we've set clear corporate objectives to manage information for competitive advantage and profit. We've also responded to new regulatory-compliance requirements with information-accountability initiatives designed to ensure information accuracy and rapid reporting of material events. And we've spent money-often lots of money-to purchase technology to implement these strategies. But the fact is, most companies aren't even close to reaching their goals.
If the technology exists to meet our information-management objectives-and it does-what's the real obstacle to data-driven decision making? The answer is that business culture and management philosophy have prevented information-management technologies from being optimally implemented. And the solution lies in an increasingly popular concept: information democracy. For most companies, information-management and business-intelligence initiatives have focused on "cleaning up" specific data sets and improving access to this data within certain departments or for a limited number of need-to-know audiences.
Information democracy takes two critical steps beyond this: integrating all relevant information into a single data source, and making this data available companywide. Though not all information can be made available to every employee, proponents of information democracy assert that as much information as possible should be accessible by as many people as possible.
The result of this information sharing is profound for the companies that have reached this stage, and PerkinElmer is an excellent example. We're a $1.5 billion company that provides services and products in health sciences and other technologies. We have 10,000 employees in 125 countries. We're witnessing firsthand the benefits of the information-democracy revolution, which involves better decision making based on the highest levels of confidence that everyone's looking at the same accurate, timely information. But like most companies, to get to this stage, we had to move beyond information tyranny.
Information tyranny is the norm at most large enterprises. In an effort to improve profitability and meet compliance requirements, companies have decentralized control over information, but in very limited ways. They've made the information available to a small group of individuals who really need it, and invested in many information systems-customer service, finance, marketing, product development, sales, and more. Yet, they've ended up with a profusion of incompatible applications and databases that produce inconsistent information.
Users rely on the vital information they collect for decision making, but without a unified view of all corporate information, individual departments often make decisions that have nothing to do with, or even conflict with, the reality in other departments. Faced with inconsistencies wherever they turn, most executives fall back on making decisions based on gut feeling rather than empirical information.
Fortunately, some executives have taken it upon themselves to start a revolution. The information-democracy revolution starts with strategically implemented technology. Enterprise software technologies for business intelligence, data integration, and data warehousing are available to integrate all the disparate data sources in a far-flung enterprise. At PerkinElmer, we standardized on business-intelligence solutions from Business Objects to deal with two related business challenges: improving the company's product-line strategy and facilitating corporate expansion.
With thousands of our own product offerings, we needed to understand which were profitable. Before we standardized on our BI system, we had no automated way to monitor and analyze unified product data. Today, however, we're armed with up-to-date information and we can make fact-based decisions about which product lines to maintain or discontinue, as well as overall product strategy. Our financial analysts have real-time information about product sales and order performance, and managers can evaluate and improve pricing models, sales and marketing campaigns, purchase price of materials vs. sales, sales by region or product line, profitability of individual salespeople, and more.
We're also able to manage growth. Like many large companies, we have grown via mergers and acquisitions. As we expanded, we needed to unite our legal and billing structures, and integrate disparate data warehouses from across our business and our newly acquired companies into a single data source. We've been able to monitor the business and integrate the new companies without any of the horror stories so common to mergers and acquisitions.
The lesson here is clear. There are few technical impediments to integrating disparate data sources into a single resource that can be made easily accessible to multiple users. The real challenge is to find a solution that's cost-effective and doesn't require you to gut your existing systems. At PerkinElmer, we found that there were several options for integrating our various data sources. Ultimately, BI let us leverage and unite our current information investments. We were able to roll out the system within six months.
But the next step in achieving information democracy is more difficult: changing the corporate culture. The first hurdle to overcome is the tendency on the part of many executives to restrict access to information. Some think they're protecting the proprietary nature of the data. Some think employees might get anxious if they know too much about the company. Some simply fear losing control. The second hurdle is more subtle-convincing users that the information they're accessing is accurate and they should rely on it.
At PerkinElmer, we overcame the first hurdle far more easily than many companies because our management team understood that the more information we shared, the more our various stakeholders would focus and align on the same issues. In some companies it will take a sustained effort, drawing on external reports and case studies and internal demonstrations of the power of sharing, to convince the management team to initiate this cultural change.
Overcoming the second hurdle took us a little more time. At first, managers who were accustomed to gut-based decision making and who believed their product lines were profitable, reacted with disbelief at the information revealed by our BI system. But because the solution includes the ability to look at the data behind the results, we consistently demonstrated the data's validity and converted the skeptics into ardent supporters.
Today, our company has changed. Confident that we're looking at one version of the truth, we've standardized more of our business practices, and our employees now expect to get more specific information to drive product development.
Revolutions take time. As companies set out on the road to information democracy, they should realize that it doesn't have to be an expensive, risky, all-or-nothing proposition. As they integrate their data systems, individuals and groups have the opportunity to gain immediate benefits from the information, and executives can gain an increasingly clearer picture of the business. In business, the road to democracy isn't paved with the blood of martyrs. Instead, it's paved with ever-increasing insights and the growing confidence that decisions are being made based on the latest, most accurate information.
Matthew Dattilo is VP and CIO at PerkinElmer.
:: Back to Top |
|
|
