Enterprise Information Management

The Challenge - If we look at the history and mind you its not a changed world as we speak, there are isolated efforts in organizations on Data Integrations, Data Management Initiatives (like Quality, Profiling, MDM), Metadata, Corporate Performance Management. Net result, lot of investment in IT  systems to bring the much needed Information from Huge pile of data stores and yet Information is at large!! There came an Avatar for rescue, and the idea is to set what's wrong, bring collaboration amongst all those isolated efforts and drive in common direction of organizational goals. No prizes for guessing this Avatar - EIM, the real prize is in realizing the need and importance of EIM for the organization.

Let me make an attempt to define this Avatar: A coordinated effort and initiative to bring together the Enterprise wide Information for driving the Organizational goals at Strategic, Operational and Tactical levels. If I were to list down the key terms comprising EIM,I would choose following:
- Data from Source Systems (Structured and un-structured)
- Interfaces
- Data Integration
- Data Transformation & Aggregation
- Information Dissemination (Portals, Extracts, Reporting Applications, OLAP Cubes, Feeds etc)
- Aligning Data (drilling to Tactical and Operational levels) to Strategic Objectives
- Standardize the Technology and tools across the Organization
- Best practices in Industry on Data Integration, ETL, Data Warehouse/Data Marts/Data Store, Reporting, Metadata, MDM

Few of the business initiatives which where EIM becomes important and strategic arm for any organization, and without a firm EIM in place achieving those is like a nightmare
- Regulatory Compliance (BASEL-II, HIPAA etc)
- Data Governance and Data Quality Enterprise Wide
- Master Data Management, CDI/PDI
- Align Business with IT or vice versa
- Leveraging Pooling of resources and cross departmental data sharing
- Information Risk management and data Security

Today the data that gets integrated from multiple data sources with organization & bigger challenge is to bring together the structured and un-structured data (comprises of over 70% untapped potential) together for decisioning. This data ventually flows to various users at different levels of organizational hierarchy. If we pick Retail business to illustrate -
At Operational levels: Right from POS (for right pricing, discounts etc), to store owner managing the floor spacing and food stocks on shelf, to Warehouse managers integrating orders to supply chain and maintaining optimal inventory, to logistics manager for deliveries or warehouse replenishments to  performance reporting on daily basis.
At Tactical and Analysis levels : Business Analysts, Marketing specialist doing analysis on operational level data gathered and identifying issues, problems before they scale large. Do reporting to higher levels on Departmental performances, financial performances
At Strategic Levels : All the above rolls on to strategic level aiding decision points, refocus on strategies or go aggressive in specific geographies, check on the profitability and organization financial performances.

With that level of decision makers involved and accessing information, the need of the hour is a solution that holds all of those pieces together under a common data Governance Umbrella and a common language spoken across the organization - This is how i view EIM as.

In continuation of this I am planning to elaborate on pros, cons and myths on EIM, and how should one approach towards a successful EIM which can showcase a transparent ROI with equipping one with effective decisioning power.

Do share your views and experiences with EIM world.