Enterprise-wide Information Management Research Articles

Challenging Goliath

Martin White, Managing Director of Intranet Focus Ltd, issues a challenege. Is Microsoft’s domination of the delivery of desktop information management tools inhibiting effective enterprise-wide information management? Is our “monolithic adoption” of applications like Office 365’s Teams (barely out of beta) cramping our creative, strategic style? Are our IT departments wed to convenient Microsoft solutions that are not relevant to organisational requirements?
 Keywords: Microsoft, Inranets, Information Managment, O365, Office 365, Search

Enterprisewide Information Management System for Transportation Right-of-Way Activities

Given the current state of technology–with service-oriented architecture, decentralized information, and desktop access to cloud computing and data management–enterprise systems for managing the information associated with business operations are necessary for improving efficiency and quality while optimizing resources. In transportation agencies, this situation is particularly true in the data-intense real estate offices that purchase and manage right-of-way property before construction. A structure is presented for a logical model of an enterprisewide information management system for transportation right-of-way activities. The business processes are based on the federal requirements as mandated by law and outlined in the Project Development Guide of FHWA's Office of Real Estate Services for appraisal, acquisition, relocation, and property management. The logical model is developed with the use of unified modeling language, which is considered to be a standard computer system modeling language rich in well-defined graphical notations for representing complex systems and provides the structure for developing an operational information management software program.

Addressing the data aspects of compliance with industry models

A fundamental aspect of compliance involves the capability to produce business reports which constitute adequate audit and control records. This presents two significant challenges. Very often, international and government regulators do not coordinate their policies, creating a great deal of overhead for the implementing organizations, particularly those represented in multiple geographical areas. In addition, the information required to produce these reports may be in inconsistent formats throughout the enterprise or unavailable at the right level of detail. To overcome these challenges, organizations need to develop an enterprise-wide data architecture that enables the consolidation of regulatory reporting requirements and the integration of data from different business areas. The definition of data standards and the use of common data-modeling techniques throughout the enterprise can assist in this effort. IBM has developed a series of industry models that address these challenges based on the principles of data warehousing and business intelligence. This paper describes in detail the technical and business challenges of information management in the context of compliance and presents a few practical examples of how customers in the financial services industry have addressed compliance requirements such as Basel II and Solvency II by using enterprise-wide information management approaches based on industry models and related technology.

Information Integration Response to E-Business Challenges - A Romanian Case Study

Romanian enterprises are considering information more and more as an important resource. The challenge consists in using all the integration techniques of the day - whether it's information, data, application, systems or even business-process integration - to build an IT platform that can meet the demands of real-time. In the last few years, new fundamental technologies have provided the basis for clearly improved functionality and quality of enterprise-wide information management. The fundamental nature of work is changing in the e-business era. The enterprises must use all the opportunities, capabilities and support technologies in order to survive and to obtain a real advantage on themarket. In a world of information and people mobility, Lotus suite provided by IBM is able to offer a plus for the users. The portal solution is a collection of technologies that work together to aggregate a selected sunset of information into a central location and reflects the vision about the way in which enterprises can evolve to the next Knowledge age Companies use Enterprise Resource Planning software to enable processes that confer competitive advantage. Supply Chain Management covers a gap in the ERP system: offering a flexible analysis and planning tool. Other contemporary business paradigms, such as Customer Relationship Management, require the cooperation with the organization's customers. Platform integration provides connectivity among heterogeneous hardware, operating systems and application platforms. These systems run a wide range of applications, including ERP, an integrated supply chain, order-to-collection system, CRM applications, call center support etc. Integrating various enterprise applications offers corporations tremendous benefits, such as streamlined business processes and increased efficiency. This paper is about the reality of enterprise information integration in Romania.

Federated management of distributed data and services

Over a period of 10 years, the FAW has developed a Software Engineering Paradigm to develop distributed data, applications, and processes for heterogeneous environments. This paradigm is supported by a set of tools that has been implemented at FAW and is now commercialized via the spin-off company KNOWING. These tools and the Software Engineering Paradigm are forming a platform for enterprise integration as specified, e.g., in the definition of CIMOSA. Enterprise integration hereby means the strategic aim to continuously develop one productive enterprise data and function model. This is a key for an enterprise-wide information and resource management. It should be based on a solution for enabling the transparent access to all available data and functions in distributed heterogeneous environments via a logical point of information. In this paper, the implementation concept for so-called information logistic services — forming the logical point of information — will be described. These services are implementing the information entity in the framework of an integrating infrastructure as it has been described by CIMOSA. Besides the details of its implementation, a positioning in an overall implementation architecture for enterprise integration, as it has been developed and implemented at FAW, will be explained as well.

Information Management at State Highway Departments: Issues and Needs

The North Carolina Department of Transportation, in its continuing efforts to more fully and effectively use advanced information technology tools to increase institutional productivity and effectiveness in managing its transportation infrastructure, embarked on a study that involved developing a comprehensive and unified enterprisewide information management system. This paper focuses on the issues and needs that emerged as the information system development study evolved. These issues and needs became so significant that they warranted a detailed analysis in and of themselves. It is these issues and needs, which have a degree of universality, that are reported herein. This paper first introduces and discusses the functions of various participating units at state departments of transportation (referred to as stakeholders). Then, the paper identifies the issues and needs that must be fully understood and considered in the development of a unified information management system.

STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLANNING Aligning Business Goals with Technology

Abstract For strategic business planning to be successful in the prevailing competitive business environment, current and future technology needs must be considered. In many organizations, it is the responsibility of the IS manager to ensure that the information systems support these business needs. The IS manager must have a clear understanding of the organization's strategic business plan and must tailor IS projects to meet that plan's objectives. Enterprisewide information management and enterprise analysis can help the IS manager understand the business strategy and predict the effects of technology on that strategy.

Enterprisewide Information Management: State-of-the-Art Strategic Planning

MIS plans compete with many other potential business investments and business problems for the attention of senior management. Consequently, a strategic planning methodology should not only produce a plan linked to business planning but also should create a persuasive case for its support. This article examines the state of the art in strategic planning in terms of enterprisewide information management (EwIM), which is a set of concepts and tools that enable MIS managers to plan, organize, implement, and control information resources to meet current and future strategic goals.

Systems Planning for the Enterprisewide Information Management Complex: The Architectural Approach

:An architectural approach is used to provide a framework for understanding the Enterprise-wide Information Management Complex (ewimc). Imc is proposed as an emerging self-contained business process that interfaces with but remains separate from all other business elements, while providing unique services to those other elements. A generic model of ewimc itself is presented that breaks down imc into a set of systems federations, each functionally distinct from one another; each federation, in turn, is composed of more specific systems and each system its subsystems, and so on. Thus, a top-down, hierarchical approach is applied to the concept of imc to provide a framework for understanding the complexities and interrelationships among its many pieces. The model is offered as a first step in developing a comprehensive overview of ewimc to replace the numerous fragmented approaches offered in the past. An example of General Motors’ architecture is presented. Finally, the System Planning Technique is presented as a tool for defining systems requirements.

Enterprise-Wide Information Management: An Expert System for Assessing Organizational Functioning and Problem Areas

Two major frameworks are employed to gain perspective on how to assess functioning and identify problem areas within complex organizations. We combine Enterprise-wide Information Management with Living Systems to gain the overarching perspective needed. These perspectives provide the thrust for designing methodologies for analyzing business organizations. Information obtained through implementation of these methods will be captured in an expert system. The goal is to design an expert system that business managers can use to help locate potential problems within their organizations and that researchers can use to study and develop more-standardized norms about organizational functioning.

Enterprise-Wide Information Management Consultant: A Functional Overview

Enterprise-wide Information Management Consultant (EwIMC) is a set of expert system based Decision Support Systems. EwIMC provides an automated support for Business Strategy Analysis, Value Activity Analysis, IPS Quality Analysis, Competitive Forces Analysis, IT Opportunity Analysis, and Information Architecture Definition.Intended users of EwIMC are those individuals whose primary responsibility is in the planning aspect of Enterprise-wide Information Management (EwIM). EwIMC has two distinct, yet highly integrated, characteristics. The first characteristic is that of a CONSULTANT that leads the user through the problem analysis and decision making activities of EwIM, just as a human consultant would. The second characteristic is that of an information planner's WORKBENCH, where the user has access to an integrated set of software tools (e.g., statistical, simulation and mathematical programming packages) and data repositories (e.g., data dictionaries and corporate databases) for performing sensitivity analysis, resource allocation, problem diagnosis, and so on. This paper describes a functional overview of EwIMC.