BUILD AN INFORMATION STRATEGY FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION
THE NEED FOR CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT
Build Consulting’s experience with nonprofits points to a large gap between the
need for effective information management and the capacity to achieve it.
This manifests itself in a variety of different ways, but ultimately the result is
that process, data, and technology are to some degree disconnected from the
needs of the organization.
Lacking information management capacity, many nonprofits view technology
as a sort of cure-all. This is most commonly voiced as “we will have better data
quality if we adopt new technology” or “we will have better processes if we buy
a better product.”
Approaching the technology market (whose goal is
to sell you technology) with this perspective is a
recipe for unmet expectations at a high cost.
We often present this formula to our
clients: OO+NT=EOO (Old
Organization + New Technology =
Expensive Old Organization)
Taking advantage of modern information systems
requires solid information management
leadership/governance, operations, processes, and
data. Achieving this requires some degree of
organizational change.
Yes, technology plays a strong supporting role in data quality and process
automation. But technology will not define your process or data requirements.
Technology is just one part of the solution, albeit a critical part. And as we will
see, it is the last in a sequence of five factors that must be addressed for
information management success.
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