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IBM Bolsters The Case For Information Governance: Page 3 of 4

IBM States the Case for the Value of Information Governance
However, information governance for data protection is something a company has to do or run risks, ranging from public embarrassment to legal exposure. IBM understands the value of information governance. The company's recent launch is both about presenting the value case for information governance, as well as the products and services it offers to support related processes.

IBM used a recent study by the IBM Institute for Business Value to demonstrate the value of information governance. The study surveyed nearly 400 business leaders worldwide in August 2009 about their use of information and the application of business intelligence. IBM then compared the information practices of top- and lower-performing organizations. Among the findings were that top performers were three times more likely to have high-quality information, 3.2 times more likely to have a strong decision support toolset, and 2.5 times more likely to foster a keen focus on driving business change. Most importantly for this discussion, top performers were three times more likely to use sophisticated governance systems than lower performers. Cause and effect are not necessarily correlated between data governance and top performers, which means we cannot conclude that having sophisticated data governance leads to top performance in companies. Still, it is a very positive sign.

IBM Sees the Coming of Age of Information Governance
Even though IBM calls its latest announcement a launch, the company has been prominent in information governance for a number of years as exemplified by its support of a customer-driven Information Governance Council, formerly the Data Governance Council. One of the key contributions of this group is a maturity model. The original version seemed to be modeled after the famous Carnegie-Mellon software maturity model, but the latest incarnation compares business operational maturity against information and analytics maturity to create a business analytics and optimization maturity model.

Personally, I find this new model very insightful, thought-provoking and useful. The model gives the name to the game at each stage of maturity and essentially demonstrates how to achieve additional value as an enterprise moves through different stages of maturity (and don't try to skip stages of maturity). The name of the highest stage--Breakaway--is enticing. Information governance is necessary for moving along the stages of the business model. (By the way, it also offers the CIO and the IT organization a strong raison d'etre, i.e., long-term, guaranteed full employment.)

IBM also takes the point of view that there is an information supply chain analogous to the flow of materials through a physical supply chain. IBM views that information governance is necessary to optimizing the information supply chain.