KR5 Consulting - Business Technology Consulting

Why Business System Information is Valuable

Could lack of timely information slow your business system down? Is your team struggling to perform because they’re distracted finding information they need? Your team needs the right information to complete most business tasks – wouldn’t you agree?

Leaders want a fast and effective business system. Could business system information be the secret? You want to get more out of your team alongside creating an attractive workplace. Ideally, you want an empowered team that’s creating more value. But are your systems holding them back?

Looking for an in-depth guide on the Business System? Check out Business System: An Essential Guide to Growth. This guide explains what it’s all about, why it’s important to business, and the steps involved.

Why Information is King

What does a business system that gets the right information to the right person at the right time look like? Your team have all the information they need to complete tasks quickly. Without the distractions and frustrations, they’re empowered to better serve customers. Not only that, but they can also be fully present instead of half listening. They’re more confident. With the right information they can make better and faster decisions. Information really is king!

Your Business Deserves an Effective System

Improve Your Business System Performance with KR5 Consulting

What’s the worst that can happen?

We often don’t think about the information side of our business system. Surely, information issues can’t cause that much damage – can they? Other than tasks taking longer than they should, it can cause inconsistencies. That’s because all those product and customer decisions are based on information. Lack of information can mean more guess work. More guess work, more inconsistencies. In the worst cases, incomplete or inaccurate information can result in letting your customers down.

Why it goes horribly wrong!

What you want is for your business system to get the right information, to the right person, at the right time. What could possibly go wrong?

  • It’s Lost – no one thought to capture the information
  • captured – but don’t know where
  • or captured – but don’t have access
  • captured – but it’s difficult to get to
  • or captured – but don’t know which piece of information you should use
  • captured – but you don’t trust the information
  • or captured – but not in a form you can use
  • It’s inaccurate – out of date
  • Inaccurate – missing chunks
  • or inaccurate – multiple versions and don’t know which one is correct
  • Not available when you need it – time to guess and make it up!

Two types of information

In a business system there are two types of information. There’s information you want to store and use again, and then there’s information that’s only used for a brief time. Most information is something you want to keep. For example, your customer’s contact details. Today, businesses collect more and more information. That’s because it’s easier and cheaper to store information and use it for analysis and making business improvements. You only need some information for a brief time. For example, your number in a queue. Such information helps a process complete, but once complete, the information has no value.

Why we think information isn’t as valuable as it is

Most people don’t think about all the information used in a business system. What they care about is having the right information to get stuff done. In other words, they only care about the information they want when they want it.

But when you think about the entirety of a business system, you also think about all the information. That’s because the system doesn’t work without the information. Instead of information to get the job done, think about it as a valuable reusable business asset.

Why is information valuable?

There’s a cost of gathering information. That might be a phone call, research, observation and then it’s captured and stored. If it’s not your time, it’s your customer’s time. So, there’s a financial value of capturing and storing information. But there’s also value in how you use information. A forecast, a prediction, a trend. Using information to spot those customers that bought x also bought y.

When you look at business system information, it’s used and reused across the business.  Instead of capturing and storing multiple times, capture and store it once and reuse it many times. Having systems that deliver the right information to the right person at the right time really does help your business grow.

Finally

We understand it can feel overwhelming. You need both an overview and the ability to break the challenge down into smaller manageable chunks. Using information systems for your small business helps you achieve more. The digital business system is what enables leaders to scale and improve performance.

Your Business Deserves an Effective System

Improve Your Business System Performance with KR5 Consulting

If you’d like to discuss this topic, contact me on rhounsell@kr5consulting.com or DM on LinkedIn.

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