Information Orientation: The Link to Business Performance

In today's fast-moving, e-commerce economy information is power. For years companies have been investing in IT, expecting to develop their ability to exploit the power of information and achieve better business performance. Frequently, a company's investment has been a cost with no clear payback–a competitive necessity rather than a strategic advantage. The authors have developed a clear and effective framework for evaluating IT strategies - Information Orientation. Information Orientation does this by determining the degree to which a company implements and realizes the synergies across three information capabilities: information behaviors and values; information management practices; and information technology practices. The book provides a thorough description of the dimensions of each of the capabilities, along with the analytical basis which validates the research finding that a company must integrate all three information capabilities as a precondition for achieving superior business performance. The book presents the Information Orientation Dashboard as a diagnostic tool to measure and evaluate the stengths and weaknesses of a company's information capabilities. The book also identifies a new trend in the way in which senior managers think about achieving strategic priorities and future industry leadership with information. The book contributes to a new area of management thinking by offering empirically-tested and statistically-validated theories, which will not only be of interest to academics, but will also carry great significance for the practitioner. For academic readers, this book presents a theory with supporting evidence and arguments for changing the way management, and in particular IT researchers, examine the roles of people, information, and IT in decision making and strategy implementation. For company managers, this book provides a new framework and business metric that challenges current mindsets and practices concerning how people, information, and IT can be managed to achieve business results.