CIO Actions Top Three Information

CIO Actions

Top Three Information Management Issues

Of the many information management problems the organization has, three are the most important. They include how the company at times doesn't seem to have the right knowledge to get projects done or products built customer information that is many times wrong and incomplete, and reports that are often out of date and lack useful information. The top three information management areas are knowledge management, customer data management and analytics. Knowledge management systems depend on having the right tools in place to capture and manage it (Lopez-Nicolas, Merono-Cerdan, 2009). Our organization does not offer tools to capture knowledge, so we continually have to reinvent them and this takes too much time. Second, customer data is located all over the company. For customers to be loyal, companies need to tailor marketing programs to their needs through the use of customer data management systems (Khan, Lewis, Singh, 2009). Our customer databases are not linked together and there is no way to get a full view of any customer electronically. Third, our report writing systems and analytics applications are not getting accurate data from the accounting system. Analytics systems are critical as they provide guidance on which business strategies are working (Lieberman, 2009).

Most Important Information Management Issue

Of the three information management issues, the most critical is the lack of accurate customer data. The customer data management systems have made it very difficult for marketing to plan programs on the website and with resellers and distributors. The sales teams have only limited history of what each customer has purchased and when they last bought. Customer data management is a critical area of making relationships with customers matter (Khan, Lewis, Singh, 2009). Creating a customer data management system is the first step in building an effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) series of strategies and programs to learn more about customers (Dyche, 2009). With customer data management and a CRM in place marketing departments struggle with creating marketing campaigns and programs and tracking their results. Sales departments find it very difficult to sell products that are profitable and overall the company begins to lose touch with the needs of its customers. This is why this area is the most important, because invested in making customer data management systems more effective can help the company sell more and be more needed by customers too. Without having the customer data management system in place and working correctly companies run the risk of not being able to keep track of their customer bases as well (Wilkinson, 2009). Losing track of an entire customer base will drastically limit the ability to get them to purchase the next generation of products. In addition many of our customers like to get e-mails or mailers of what is going to be on sale. They like personal communication. Customer data management makes it possible to personalize communications to customers and make sure they continue to buy (Khan, Lewis, Singh, 2009). Managing a customer base is through customer data management can keep a company financially alive (Wilkinson, 2009).

Action Plan

To make the customer data management systems work right, there needs to be a series of systems connected or integrated together so that a single customer database can be created. Once the customer data is organized together into a single database, customer data management systems applications including customer analytics applications can be used to analyze it (Todd, 2009). In addition marketing automation applications can be added to the customer data management so marketing can start running sales campaigns and measuring if they are working or not. Third, Sales will work with the information technologies department to create a customer account management and contact management series of screens that can be used for tracking their sales calls. The sales team will also work with the information technologies department to create new ways of tracking customer contacts and manage account information (O'Reilly, Paper, 2009). Next, the financial systems of the company will be integrated or linked into the customer data management system to see how much profits each customer, and also each distributor is generating.

Financial analysis is going to be very important for defining customer segments by price they are willing to pay (Khan, Lewis, Singh, 2009). Having financial information within the customer data management records will also give marketing an idea of how profitable the promotions they are running are. That is why integrating financial systems to the customer data management system is very important.

At present the company does not have the ability to measure how the distribution channels are doing from a sales and profits standpoint. Having the customer data management system include distribution and reseller accounts as part of the total system can be used for managing distribution channels including retailers and distributors (Dyche, 2009). Creating reports that rank how each product is doing from a selling standpoint would also give good insight into how best to manage the overall group of product sold through each distribution channel.