CFO Research Services, in collaboration with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, has produced a study on information management issues, “Look closer, look further: How to build a better business case for improving information capabilities.” The study reveals that no one factor helps executives justify the actions and investments needed to enhance their companies’ information capabilities. It also uncovers a profound, overarching theme: respondents that think broadly when evaluating the business case for information investment are more likely to succeed and to reap greater benefits.

Key findings
The report uncovers three key findings.  First, companies tend to overlook the embedded and often fragmented labour costs associated with searching for, collating, verifying and analyzing data.  Second, the consequences of maintaining the status quo include the risks of not knowing what is truly happening in the business, not knowing that action is necessary and making uninformed decisions.  Third, many executives inadvertently weaken their business case by focusing too narrowly.

From a Canadian perspective, responses generally mirrored those from the rest of the world. Canadian executives possess a better understanding of the management information cost to comply with government regulations and are more likely to take a broad range of factors into consideration when making IT investment decisions.  However, Canadian organizations wrestle with the true cost of management information.  In particular, they struggle to readily understand the cost of IT spending on management information.  Canadian business units are also less likely to drive decision making regarding the management information that is required for performance monitoring.

Over 400 senior finance and IT executives participated in our research process, many participating in one-on-one in-depth interviews. Seventy percent of responses came from senior finance executives, with the remainder from senior IT executives.

This report builds on a 2005 study, “IQ Matters: Senior Finance and IT Executives Seek to Boost Information Quality,” which examined management information and the role that finance and information technology teams play in determining when, where and how to improve information capabilities.

Download the complete report, Look closer, look further.