It’s a given that information is the lifeblood of the 21st century organisation. Organisations that seek the elusive goal of a single view of the customer need first to instill an information-sharing culture throughout the company, not simply attempt to apply a quick technology fix.

In an age where information is perceived as power, there is a problem caused by the confusion between data and knowledge. Standard corporate business software applications from financial and accounting packages through enterprise resource planning and supply chain management to customer relationship management offer enormous efficiency and productivity gains; the downside is that they also generate great floods of data.

Organisations need to manage and analyze data efficiently if they are to transform that data into knowledge that can in turn be used to make business-critical decisions that impact on the bottom line.