Title: Managing information strategically
Description: Over the past 25 years, the corporate world has undergone a transition from an industrial economy to an information economy - an environment where information drives the creation of wealth and prosperity, and where businesses accustomed to winning by virtue of size are losing their lead to competitors more agile in their use of information. Visionary companies have realized for years that succeeding in this new age will require better management of information - but up to now, too many have focused primarily on the management of information technology, and its potential for boosting worker productivity. This first volume in the Ernst & Young Information Management Series emphasizes that organizations must learn to view information itself as a potent tool - and manage it as a resource that is more strategically important than labor or capital.

Drawing on a wide range of studies and the experience of companies ranging from American Airlines to Frito-Lay, Managing Information Strategically explains how an organization must explicitly consider information issues in its overall strategic thrust - as it designs a plan to achieve market distinction, marshals the resources to execute that plan, and finally, integrates strategy with execution in a dynamic environment. In Part I, the authors examine the role of information in strategy design. They show how active management of information is required to define customers and market segments and discover the full nature of the competition; both are key elements in a company's ability to carve out a niche in the marketplace. The book also demonstrates how information in itself is increasingly being offered by companies as a differentiating product, and how it helps to inspire and support new strategic alternatives.

Part II offers guidance on the management of information to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of important organizational processes. Here, McGee and Prusak focus on three areas that have previously received scant attention - the definition of information management processes, the design of information architectures, and the management of behavior regarding information. With regard to the last of these, the authors focus particularly on issues of information politics. Noting that information access - like access to other important resources - is a form of power, they explain how behavior around information can be highly political in major companies. By analogy to alternative forms of government (monarchy, federalism, etc.), the book outlines the major models of information politics within organizations, discusses the advantages and drawbacks of each, and highlights the danger of imposing an inappropriate model on an organizational culture.

Part III of Managing Information Strategically considers the management of information to integrate strategy design and execution - and to support strategic performance measurement. It examines the role of information-based management processes and systems in keeping an organization's operations aligned with its strategic goals. In this final section, McGee and Prusak also discuss the value of systematic learning within an organization. Ongoing learning, they state, is the engine that empowers an organization to adapt to a dynamic environment with new and more relevant strategies. The authors show how information and information technology can be used to stimulate both individual and organizational learning within an organization and allow it to maintain agility in a world whose only constant is change.

Managing Information Strategically offers important guidelines on managing information - but more importantly, it sends a long-needed wake-up call to business about the crucial and constant role of information in the quest for strategic success. It's sure to help organizations understand what it means to be information-enabled at a time when they must be to survive.
Subjects: Information resources management, Management information systems, Strategic planning, Gestion de l'information, Systèmes d'information de gestion, Planification stratégique