For some of us, this may be true, but the cable industry tends to treat mapping as the sacrificial lamb when it comes to budgeting. Even during a rebuild or upgrade, some people accept sub-par mapping because they don't want to spend the money to design the system correctly. Don't stop there. If some data can be collected, IM can store it, and you can query it for your decisions. Knowing these things will greatly influence how quickly you can get your return up and running and what its cost will be.
Many systems have great techs who know their systems intimately.
But that doesn't translate into increased revenue because techs don't sell new business to potential customers. Or worse yet, you might think you have what it takes and get into a contract, only to find out that you can't deliver. Without IM, your records likely are spread out all over your company, might be inaccurate, and certainly are difficult to find and use quickly. Pick three systems that haven't done any prep work for two-way digital, and ask them to determine how soon they could deploy a digital service such as Internet access and how much it would cost. Part of preparing for IM is to gather all the information you want your IM system to incorporate.