Information Systems

Information is what makes or breaks a business.

Why?

Simple.  It allows decisions to be made.

If you don’t have a good information system in place, you may either be flying blind or you are getting something inaccurate or untimely which makes your business slow to act.

The faster your business can make decisions, the better it can compete in it’s market.
That requires a really good information system that gets data to everyone who needs it to act.

Imagine if you knew that Opra was going to say something on her show about a new product she loves and you happen to be a retailer that could gain access to it and get it on your shelves.  The earlier you know the better you can act on it.  Would your current information systems tell you something like this?

That’s BIG information that you could use to make a big decision with your business.  But it may not happen all the time.

The concept of having information for decision making is even more basic than this.  It’s needed for moment to moment action.

Client calls, who is this person you have on the phone, who is working on their project, are they really a client or a prospect?  If you’re a receptionist, can you get all this information in a few seconds to get them to the right person who can give them service or finish closing the deal?  If your’e not the receptionist, can you get the information anyway, and connect them to the right person?  Or are you the kind of company that transfers a person back to reception because your data is siloed in different systems?

A Car Analogy

If you are new to running a business or buried in one and can’t see the big picture…
Imagine if you have a really slow information system that gives you reports once month. Let’s say your car is your business. It’d be like having no dashboard with black paint on the windshield. Once a month you can strip away the paint and you have a static dashboard showing where you’re at for that moment. You can drive at that point. But then your windshields turns black when you turn a corner and you need to pull over till next month. You need more information. A better system that gives you a view of the road as you are driving your business. You can avoid deer and all kinds of things that way.

Running off of monthly reports is like driving your car with black on the windshield and no dashboard.
You’re going to hit things and take damage. You aren’t going to get far and you’re going to have a lot of lawsuits and repair expense. Sometimes executives can drive this way because they know the road and do it from memory -but they can’t predict the deer or the exact location of an intersection where they need to stop. Emagine how well they would drive with full visibility and a real-time dashboard.

 

Cloud Information Systems

In some companies that understand this concept, you find their information system is even called a decision support system. Real-time information at a glance allows you to decide and ACT. You can compete this way.

This is why putting your systems in the cloud makes sense. If you can access you information from anywhere, you can drive your business from anywhere.

Collecting your business information and storing it in a way it can be aggregated and viewed over time can also help you make sound long-term decisions that can allow you to predict the future to a degree. It can also help you avoid an impending disaster.

To close -and as an example, watch this video of 2011 world earthquakes (magnitude 6 and above), and decide where might want to live to avoid them. At 1.49 in the video, you can see the japan quakes that killed so many from the tsunami.

[youtube width=”640″ height=”390″ video_id=”cwWn_W6ZbT4″]

If you’re looking for the safest place to live on earth, don’t forget to compare this information with other disaster data.  Find some similar videos or charts on fires, floods, storms, temperature, crime, dangerous animals, median income demographics, housing cost, -you get the idea.