Do You Know Where Your 'IT' Is?

How long has it been since you’ve had an IT audit of your organization?

Have you added new technology in your company in the last several years?  Are your systems documented with graphical depictions or illustrations that provide current information about your server environment, external security, internal security, and your back up system?  Do you know how your virus software is updated and company and client personal and confidential information is secured?   How up to date are your mission critical systems and what productivity gains are you missing as a result of older versions of software?  Does your business intelligence provide you the information that you need readily and in the most efficient and reliable manner?  Is your reporting capability timely and hassle-free?  What is your plan for a single point of failure contact for your IT system?  What plan is in place if that contact is not available?  Do you have a disaster recovery plan?  These are just a few of the questions that can plague an IT environment if these issues are not thought through, provisioned for and properly documented before an incident occurs.  An annual IT audit is a sound annual business practice. 

5 Key Sources of Vital Business Intelligence

Your company has worked hard to achieve its success through some challenging times.  As the market volatility and uncertainty continues, many companies are wisely looking at the “what if” scenario that suggests that our world has a new set point.   Some call it the “new normal.”  This does not mean that your business has to consider its performance, the norm for the future.  What the current set point suggests is that this is the new perspective from which a company will want to establish its goals and objectives.  The resources that the company shed over the past few years may not be coming back.  It means that in order to increase revenues and profits, a company needs to look at its organization, systems, skillsets and processes with fresh eyes as the company embarks on goal setting.  This is particularly important where mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and other collaborative activities are part of the strategic plan for surviving and thriving.   Now is a great time to assess 5 key areas which impact your business intelligence that likely have not received much attention over the past few years and could add value and insights that will help your company build on the progress that has been made through the creative responses to difficult times.  They are:

• ·         Integrated employee skills assessment and development
• ·         IT infrastructure audit and recommendations for legacy system integration/upgrade
• ·         Risk assessment
• ·         Order to cash cycle improvement
• ·         Sales cycle improvement

Attention to any of these critical efforts will positively impact revenues, profits or cash flow and possibly some combination of those. 

This is the second in a series of blogs on business intelligence. 

Business Intelligence: Back to Basics

If you are like most companies that experienced significant growth in the mid 2000’s, or are among a fortunate group that is more recently experiencing growth, now may be a great time to pause and be mindful of what you are expecting from your business intelligence.  Business intelligence is the process for gathering, storing, accessing and using critical business information to help you and your employees make informed decisions.  What is your current business intelligence process?  Many companies have spent the past few years hunkering down and weathering the tumultuous business environment, soothing the battered morale of their workforces, stashing cash away for the next day and trying to figure out how Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn were going to become a component of their marketing strategies. 

Now is a great time to reexamine your most important key performance indicators and see whether you are getting timely, accurate information and how accessible that information is for the right audiences.   Four great questions to consider and update are:

1)  What information and key performance indicators are most critical to you and your employees today?

2)  How might the timely and accurate capture of that information and metrics be improved and used for profit and progress?

3)  How available is the information that you need and want in a format that aids analysis and decision making in your company?  

4)  What useful information might your competitors or other industries be gathering and analyzing that you are not?

Considering each of these aspects of your business intelligence is a first step to re-calibrating your business and developing your roadmap for growth, profitability and customer and employee satisfaction.  This is a first in a series of Blogs on the topic of business intelligence.  Your comments, ideas and suggestions are welcome.