According to a recent IBM report, leading companies are three times more effective in collecting and leveraging information than the laggards in their markets. Analytics has replaced intuition for business decision-making through what IBM dubs business analytics and optimization (BAO).

The IBM report, titled “Breaking Away with Business Analytics and Optimization,” describes three ways leading companies use data to separate themselves from the pack: 1) disrupting the status quo, 2) anticipating the future, and 3) empowering workers to make decisions based on information.

Top performers, IBM continues, are eight times more likely to pursue information-led transformation at an enterprise level than underperformers. The laggards sit around the conference table, each manager with his/her own spreadsheet, arguing over whose data is right. Where does your company fit in?

The business world is being inundated by a flood of information. Look at your own business. Do you use bar codes, RFID tags, surveillance cameras, Internet search? These alone generate tons of data that you could use to improve operations, and that‘s just the start.

For example, those surveillance cameras in your stores can do more than catch shoplifters. A savvy retailer might analyze that same data to rearrange traffic flow or eliminate bottlenecks.

Before you can even begin to play the information game the way the top performers do, you have to recognize information as one of the most valuable assets your business has. Leading companies understand the value of information, collect and consume it voraciously, and leverage it to the max using all the resources the business and IT can bring to bear.

But there is more. According the IBM study, information governance is the biggest differentiator between leaders and laggards. The top performers were three times more likely to use sophisticated data governance systems than the laggards who bumble along with, at best, rudimentary data governance.

Data governance is essential for four reasons:

1) Information accuracy and consistency. One version of the truth; no more dueling spreadsheets and the ensuing arguments.

2) Compliance. Both regulatory mandates and internal policies direct what can be done with certain data.

3) Cost control. This mainly involves getting rid of data and classifying and prioritizing the remaining data so that it is stored, protected, and disseminated in the most cost-effective way.

4) Accessibility. This entails establishing an optimized data infrastructure so that people can make use of the information in everything they do.

Getting to data governance nirvana requires automated technology. IBM has emerged as the leader, with a comprehensive toolset that is the result of a recent acquisition binge. Some of the tools are pretty nifty, like automated redaction that removes sensitive info like Social Security numbers from circulating documents. BT, formerly British Telecom, and a few others also offer a few tools.

The early adopters of this kind of data governance are the financial services firms, but every industry is experiencing massive data growth. The leaders will be the ones who collect and leverage that information best.

These leaders create intelligent organizations. In such organizations, everyone, from the warehouse laborer with a hand-held bar code scanner to the CFO with a spreadsheet, is a knowledge worker. That’s why you need information governance. ###