Filling Unmet Information Needs

One common reason why most companies do not go beyond a rearward, inward
focus in their reporting is a set of internalized constraints that have become habit.
Until recently that was all they could do with the computing systems they had. That
no longer needs to be the case. Yet most people in business roles are not aware of
what they can do because they do not know what IT systems are capable of, and
people in IT roles do not see the potential of the data they are collecting to provide
useful information to managers. Not knowing what information could be useful, it is
difficult for the end users of systems to specify the data they need. This is
particularly true when it comes to using information in innovative ways.
They also may not have an IT infrastructure that makes doing this feasible. In many
cases, information is held in separate systems that don’t interoperate easily or is
fragmented across multiple data stores, hindering more insightful or timely reporting
and analysis. Performing ongoing analysis of leading indicators, for example, usually
involves bringing together accounting and operating data, which is hard to do
without centralizing data sources and being able to access up-to-date information
from these sources efficiently.