Winners and losers in the information race

Information management: Is IT being asked the impossible?


The mainstream media generally portrays the financial services industry as being in a total mess, with customers failing to be served and management often apparently serving themselves.

Against this background, a recent Reg Reader study looking at the way information is captured and used in the financial services sector provides some clues as to what may lie behind some of the issues we hear about. The results suggest that when it comes to business intelligence (BI), the focus is squarely on the financial bottom line, and making sure that companies are clean with respect to risk and compliance. Meanwhile, product development, customer segmentation and customer services – areas that might actually make a difference to the amount of value delivered to customers - are often neglected from a BI perspective. It’s understandable that many firms have needed to focus their BI efforts in order to ensure regulatory compliance. But the lack of balance when it comes to BI is likely to come back to bite.

All of which raises the question of what’s really required in today’s stressed economic environment when it comes to making relevant information available to the people that need it – including those on the front line of the business as well as senior management.

If you are in any way involved in information management, analytics, business intelligence and reporting in your organisation, watch this Regcast that sees our panel of experts discuss the findings of this latest research and some of the lessons that can be learned about good and bad practice, the use and misuse of technology, and how to wade through a lot of politics and apathy that often stand in the way of making progress.

Those working in financial services can gain some insights into the activities of their peers and how they measure up. Those from other sectors can get some pointers from experiences gained in a tumultuous industry where information is more critical to doing business than ever before. Either way, putting financial services together with business performance and intelligence can’t help but lead to a lively and provocative debate, so feel free to watch us simply for the entertainment value.

This latest Regcast features Martha Bennett from Freeform Dynamics who led the research, Jason Foster from Blueprint who specialises in helping customers with the more demanding end of BI related requirements, and Will Thompson who looks after BI technology at Microsoft.

A free on-demand version of this broadcast is now available here.