The Business Bottleneck May Be TechnologyThe Business Bottleneck May Be Technology

Too often, businesses get little information in return for the millions of dollars they spend on information technology. We have built silos of BI tools attached to ERP and CRM systems that aren't designed to communicate common objectives across business. Even data warehouse efforts have not automated information processes, instead creating poorly structured libraries of data that business users may not be able to find or access.At this point in the Information Age, incremental steps will deliver just more of the same rather than the transformative information agility business requires. As you assess your investments in BI and information management, do a real assessment: Stop and rethink everything before you, from strategy to purchases. If your company is like most, you'll find that your current IT investments are not aligned to support their business functions. And when you find that this is indeed the case, you'll need to examine all the options available. If you stick with the status quo, you'll only fall behind.

To support business processes, consistent information processes are key. Information processes need to run across the major enterprise activities, unconstrained by the limits of your existing transactional systems. When you take this approach, you'll be able to concentrate on the information that creates revenue rather than the information technology that costs money. Let me know your thoughts.

Mark Smith is CEO And Senior Vice President of Research at Ventana Research. Write to him at [email protected].Too often, businesses get little information in return for the millions of dollars they spend on information technology. We've built silos of BI tools attached to ERP and CRM systems that aren't designed to communicate common objectives across business. Even data warehouse efforts haven't automated information processes, instead creating poorly structured libraries of data that business users may not be able to find or access.