Information has been the business driver in today’s dynamic environment. However, not all information is useful to every business process. The way information is gathered, processed, disseminated and disposed determines the business’ degree of competitiveness. In today’s information rich age, business value is generated by innovative business processes capable of sensing and responding to changes in the environment, processing passive information from disparate sources and making it actionable.
Currently, information management challenges have arisen from two sources, large volumes of information at the company’s disposal and years of decentralized IT management. Organizations are realizing that not all information is valuable at the same time. Its value fluctuates with time during its lifecycle. This has resulted in conflicts between operation managers and information technology managers. Operation managers are usually more concerned with data availability and business processes. IT managers on the other side concentrate on matters relating to Information Technology.
The US Department of Education defines operation management as a field concerned with the management of physical and technical functions of a firm, and especially those relating with development, production and manufacturing. Operation managers are adequately versed with manufacturing and manufacturing systems, plant management, equipment maintenance management, production control, industrial labor relations, strategic manufacturing policy, system analysis, cost control and production analysis among others.
IT managers on the other hand, according to the Bureau of Labor regards IT managers as personnel in an organization concerned with planning, execution, coordination, and management of computer related activities in an organization. IT managers spell the information technology goals of an organization as well as implementation of the appropriate computer and information systems and related procedures to meet the set objectives. Thus, there is a considerable difference between the cadre of IT manager and Operation managers in an organization. Their collision usually stems from the management of information for general and business purposes. While an IT manager might treat an e-Mail message as highly valuable at the time of receipt than project data in its possession, the value of an email drops rapidly. However, for an Operation manager, project data project data is crucial for all the stages of the project.
Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is the practice of applying policies to information from the time of creation to the time of disposal. ILM has evolved over time and has been used for nearly three decades. It is n concerned with the transition of information from the time they are created to the time they are disposed. At any time during the existence of information, they are classified as a record documenting a business transaction.
Information Lifecycle management have presented a new front where information is strategically managed through different phases of the life cycle and reflecting on preserving the principle of cost effectiveness. IBM for instance, has devised a six best-practice mechanism in which information can be managed efficiently throughout its lifecycle. These include data rationalization, storage virtualization, tired storage environment, information management, storage process, technology and governance, and archiving and information retention. IBM is of the view that ILM should be implemented in manageable stages bearing in mind areas of greatest return. ILM is tailored to assist companies experiencing inefficiency in information management processes based on its value. This inefficiency has traditionally resulted to excessive operational costs, underutilized storage, redundancy, unutilized space and risk exposure. With IBM’s ILM implementation, valuable organization data is replicated and stored in high-performance storage and infrastructure facilities while low priority information is offloaded and stored in less expensive mediums.
Information Lifecycle is gaining in business field and governance. This sudden shift is attributed to changes in business environment and increased awareness and understanding on the lifecycle management practices delivering greatest returns on investment.
There could be harmony between operational manager and IT managers if Information Lifecycle Management techniques are applied sufficiently. An ILM implementation implies that information will be segregated to suit the needs of every individual. Since information carries different value and associated information protection requirements, there must be a way of classifying such information so that the most important information is identified by anybody accessing them. A concise and clear classification mechanism will ensure that anybody creating or sharing information that is of value within the organization is not in collision with others. For instance, if ILM becomes more integrated in the business, it will prompt the Operation managers to be savvier on IT matter beyond their current scope.
Reactively, IT managers may feel threatened by the increased power and capability of Operation managers. However, an ILM transition and integration will prove beneficial in the long run to both the Operation manager and IT managers after realization of the gains. The transition of ILM into the business scenario will imply that a new hybrid position with responsibilities encompassing those of IT managers and Operation managers may be created. This way, in order to retain IT managers and Operational managers in the business and for them to be productive, they need to understand each other effectively plus their roles and responsibilities.
In conclusion, this paper has defined the roles of operational managers and IT managers and their collision paths in context to the value of data in an organization. It has also explored ILM and how it can assist IT and operation managers streamline their operations to minimize collision. It is notable that ILM can potentially improve a business picture as far as data management and security is concerned.
References
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IBM. Disposal and Governance Management: The foundation for information governance. Retrieved from http://www-01.ibm.com/software/ecm/disposal-governance/. .
IBM. Information lifecycle management: Efficiently manage information from creation through disposal. Retrieved from http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/its/pdf/ods00056-usen-00.pdf.
Life Cycle Management (N.D.) Information Life Cycle Management. Retrieved, from http://www.life-cyclemanagement.com/information-life-cycle-management.php. (n.d.).
Reiner, D., Press, G., Lenaghan, M., Barta, D., & Urmston, R. (2004). Information lifecycle management: the EMC perspective. Data Engineering, 2004. Proceedings. 20th International Conference on (pp. 804-807). IEEE.
