Issue 29 - SAS UK - In The Know - Enewsletter

Take our free and confidential online survey and find out how your organisation performs against the Information Evolution Model

Click here to access the Online Survey

A major issue facing most organisations today is data management & exploitation. Operational & transactional based systems produce vast amounts of data which best performing companies harness and analyse to deliver true Business Intelligence. Your organisation may have a lot of data but do you have quality information and real Business Intelligence?

An increasing number of organisations have come to realise that effective information management and the use of Business Intelligence requires more than technology. It requires alignment of their skills and resources, internal processes, and organisational culture in addition to an enterprise BI technology. The SAS Information Evolution Model (IEM) is developed to test this critical alignment. It provides a strategic framework and basis of measurement for understanding the maturity of your organisation's information management capabilities. It is a five-level maturity model that evaluates the four critical dimensions of any organisations' Information Management capabilities.

These critical dimensions are;

• 1. Human Capital:
  The information skills of individuals within the company and the quantifiable aspects of their capabilities, recruitment, training, assessment and alignment toward enterprise goals.
• 2. Knowledge processes:
  Policies, best practices, standards and governance that define:
• How information is generated, validated and used.
• How information is tied to performance metrics and reward systems.
• How the company supports its commitment to strategic use of information.
• 3. Culture:
  Organisational and human influences on information flow - the moral, social and behavioural norms of corporate culture (as shown in the attitudes, beliefs and priorities of its members), as related to the use and value of information as a long-term strategic corporate asset.
• 4. Infrastructure:
  The hardware, software, and networking tools and technologies that create, manage, store, disseminate and apply information.

All four dimensions must be considered and aligned to utilise information effectively and generate Business Intelligence, and a company's maturity along these four dimensions can be represented in a five-level evolutionary path, which make up the five levels of the IEM:

• LEVEL 1:
  An Operational level characterised by individual data "ownership" and control, where individuals apply information acquired often in a fairly ad hoc manner to tackle day-to-day functional issues.
• LEVEL 2:
  A Consolidation level where individual perspective is replaced by departmental or functional standards, metrics and perspective across all four dimensions.
• LEVEL 3:
  An Integration level is a major tipping point and a significant step to understand the organisation's value chain, and to produce and use an enterprise view of information.
• LEVEL 4:
  An Optimisation level in which the organisation can focus its energies on finding greater efficiencies in all dimensions, more accurately predicting the future through advanced analytical forecasting and creating extended networks that include: customers, suppliers, business partners and other stakeholders.
• LEVEL 5:
  Finally, an Innovation level in which growth and most revenue potential is fuelled by constant change, creativity and renewal.

SAS' research indicates that the majority of today's organisations operate at the Operational or Consolidation level, however, the winners of the next ten years will be the ones who achieve at least the Integration level. However, companies that reach the Integration level will quickly see the strategic advantages of reaching Optimisation and will chart a course to get there.

SAS Professional Services have developed an Information Evolution Assessment (IEA) that uses the IEM as a framework for evaluating how information is obtained and utilised throughout an organisation. Over the course of this proven assessment process SAS Consultants can enable organisations to;

• Gain Business Insight:
  Improve organisational understanding of how information is currently used to operate the business and make decisions.
• Maximise Interactions:
  Understand and maximise the interactions between all dimensions of the IEM in a robust information-delivery strategy.
• Capitalise on Investments:
  Understand how information-delivery investments, strategically affect an organisations ability to make business decisions.
• Define an Improvement Roadmap:
  Define a vision and execution strategy for improving decision making, and develop both an immediate action plan as well as a prioritised roadmap for long-term deployment.
• Maintain Best-in-Class BI Practices:
  Understand the importance of maintaining Information Management practices at 'best-in-class' levels, and the role and relevance of a Business Intelligence Competency Centre (BICC) in your organisation to deliver sustained benefits from Business Intelligence.

By using the IEM as a basis for measurement and improvement planning you can evolve your organisation into an intelligent enterprise, exploiting information to accomplish strategic and tactical objectives through more effective information driven decision making.

To introduce you to the IEM and enable you to quickly assess your performance against the IEM, SAS have developed an online "Business Intelligence Assessment" tool to score organisations' Business Intelligence (BI) practices using the four dimensions of the IEM. The database of organisations completing this on-line assessment is now approaching 1000 companies, so it can help you to plan & prioritise your improvement efforts with reference to a proven model of Information Evolution and a large database of organisations with results split by industrial sector. Given below is a link to this online BI Assessment tool; http://www8.sas.com/cgi-bin/bia/index.cgi?event=uksasforum

This online assessment takes approximately 10mins to complete and will enable you to;

• Score your organisations' Business Intelligence (BI) practices using the dimensions of the SAS Information Evolution Model (IEM)
• Benchmark your practices against a database approaching 1000 companies
• Compare your performance against the average score for your industry sector
• Define key areas of strength and weakness in your BI strategy
• Plan & prioritise improvement efforts with reference to a proven model of Information Evolution
• Understand if you need guidance & support from SAS Professional Services to improve your Information Management practices

If after completing this BI Assessment survey you would like to discuss your results with an expert in the IEM and/or arrange for an IEA to take place in your organisation, please contact us by sending an email to Philip.male@suk.sas.com

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