Strategic Information Management: Proposal of Business Project Model

Introduction

The concept of strategic management is broadly defined by many authors such as Schendel and Hatten, who define strategic management as the “definition and maintenance process of the organization relationships and its environment comprised of the selective use of goals and initiative to reach the relationship desired status by allocating resources that allow reaching efficiency and efficacy in actions developed by the organization and its subdivisions”; or Higgins, whose definition is the “process to manage the organizational mission follow-up while simultaneously manage the organization relationship with its environment” just to cite another definition, one by Smith, Arnold and Bizzell: “an assessment process on both the current environment and future environment, elaboration of organizational goals, execution, application and control of decisions based on the reach of those goals in the current and future environments.

Regardless the many definitions, there is no planning, control, reach of goals or strategic management, without organized information management.

Information, in its turn, is also broadly defined. According to Buckland (1991) information can be seen as:

• 1.

  Process: When the information change is renewed from exchanging other information;

• 2.

  Knowledge: The information is conveyed and becomes knowledge to the individual;

• 3.

  Information as a Matter: Tangible or intangible, as object, data and documents.

For many organizations, information is associated with a strategic value, and it could not be different provided that the information domain, in a world without borders and in constant evolution as nowadays, is crucial for the quick decision-making process, which can mean the difference between the organization failure or success.

Considering then the importance of the resource information you just need to know what the best way to handle it.

The current world scenario is volatile and extremely dynamic. Company interactions in this environment are as complex as the number of required interactions to its activities. The internal information flow of suppliers, sellers, trade unions, regulatory bodies, government and communities in those interactions keep the wheels, which set the organizations’ engines, in motion.

The information exists in the form of knowledge, data or process in volume and range so distinct that its classification to improve its use is a challenge to any organization.

That challenge and the need to guarantee a faster and efficient decision-making process and to obtain reliable reports with the same speed is often the driver for massive investments in business intelligence and information technology systems as well as many other database and softwares, which often compromise the company outcome by failing to reach its main goal.

Some companies justify those investments for the following aspects:

• 1.

  Nonexistence of information and knowledge protection and sharing practices, which leads to double efforts and constant wheel reinvention.

• 2.

  Collection, handling, dissemination issues and absence of information strategic management;

• 3.

  Acknowledgment that information and knowledge are the main factors of competitiveness nowadays, and

• 4.

  Urgency to develop an enabling setting inside organizations as a way to deal with cultural and behavioral matters.

According to Davenport (1998): “although trillions are spent in information technology with commercial purposes, technology seems unable, by itself, to provide the necessary information to run and manage business. He also says that information and knowledge are essentially human creations and we will never be able to manage them without considering the crucial role carried out by people”.

How to organize, process and transform information in resource, in a complex environment, proposing a new information strategic management methodology is the object of this article.