Business Entanglement with Information Mis-management!

This is a discussion with a good friend of mine. He is a very competent and dedicated professional : a medical specialist. His business grows quickly with his good reputation. Recently he expresses dis-satisfaction with the computer software provider as the key information of his patients (customers) are not available at the right time and at the right place. An information that is so crucial for him to make sound judgement and decision on the condition of the patient. This problem is rather widespread in most organisations - that is, business entanglement with information mis-management.

As an organisation observer, the above is seen as a logical phenomena arising from how an organisation evolves. The root cause could be traced to how a perception is formed with respect to a growing enterprise and hence an organisation that is growing alone with the business. For simplicity, this illustration is on a medical scene. However the principles discussed could be applied to any type of growing business.

A simple enterprise, for example a medical clinic operated by a medical doctor as the sole proprietor with a few nurses as assistant staff, is used as a starting point on relating the complexity of information management with growing business. As the business transaction is rather straight forward, i.e. visiting patients on general sickness or health problems, a patient record card usually suffice as information management system. When a patient comes back for subsequent visit, the doctor could glance through the past recorded information in the patient record card for a medical historical background, on top of patient's description of events or condition of sickness plus memory of past medical treatment or symptoms etc. There are other information system necessary on purchasing, stock and inventory control of essential medical supplies and accounting for compliance with law and regulation.

As medical doctor acquires more skills and knowledge in some specialised medical field, the nature of the business changes. First and foremost, the medical specialisation is required by special patients (customers) i.e. patients who need special attention, treatment and medical care with follow up on the particular specialisation of the medical doctor. An organisation that supports such requirements has to undergo growing sophistication in line with the need of the business: more trained specialist nurses are required, more elaborate medical equipment, more supporting specialists from other suppliers or medical service providers. Each of the above mentioned element of the expanding complexity plus others add more and more to the information creation and flow through the entire business. The medical specialist, who is also the sole proprietor of the business, begins to realise the overwhelming information mess that needs to be orderly and properly sorted and managed. A reactive response to the situation is to resort to Information Technology, namely computer and software, as solution. This could either be a happy solution or a nightmare that may paralyse the entire business.

For a description of a nightmarish IT outcome, an analogy is used as an illustration. An information that flows through the entire business is likened to blood that flows through the entire body system. A simple information flow and system suffice for a simple business like the medical doctor who is a general practitioner operating a medical clinic attending to general patients. A more sophisticated information flow and system are certainly required for a business with more specialisation as described above. It is then likened to blood that flows through the entire body system that makes up of many different parts, elements, or in medical language, organs, tissues, etc. The contents of the blood: cells, haemoglobin, salt, gases matter like oxygen, carbon dioxide etc. which are in constant flux and motion are likened to data in an organisation. It requires a good understanding of the various parts of the bodily system with their inter-relationship and inter-dependency to appreciate the importance of the circuitry path of the blood vessels and circulatory system. Likewise it requires a good understanding of the various components of the entire business with their inter-connectivity, inter-relationship and inter-dependency before a good information flow and its system could be designed, implemented or modified. To expect IT supplier and provider to have such crucial understanding is likened to expect a blood laboratory technician to be expert in the entire blood circulation system and its impact and significance to various parts of the body. Furthermore it is this "laboratory technician" (IT solution providers) who will eventually dictate how the information flows in the entire business system. This is a grave mistake made by many business owners. This is also a misleading advertisement by IT firms to provide "business solution" to potential clients. IT role should be recognised in its respective position as tool provider for a sound business performance. That is, IT should be understood as a powerful tool to be appropriately applied to the needs of the business. IT is not a business solution until a Business System is properly designed with identified places for IT to sit in.

A dilemma now surfaces : who then has the best understanding of the entire Business System? In the above case, surely it is the business owner, the specialist doctor. But the owner is too pre-occupied with the most important aspects of the business : attending to the customers (patients). It will take much effort on the part of the owner to verify the understanding of the information flow through the entire business system, let alone designing an information management system and implementing it. Leaving it entirely to the IT specialist is again leaving the blood circulatory system to the laboratory technician.

Another thinking by the business owner is to engage a General Manager to help to manage. This is a logical and sometimes workable approach. But it has it drawbacks. For a new and growing business, the overhead in engaging a full time General Manager may be too high, besides having little scope to keep the incumbent satisfied as a career profession. Furthermore most of the General Managers are trained or experienced in managing parts and not managing the entire organisation / system as an integrated and holistic organism. As a result the end result is still no much better. (Refer other articles in this homepage on many such symptoms of managers, CEO, management committee etc.)

Following the above discussion, two groups of Knowledge and Skills are highly required to help to bridge the above described dilemma towards a more creative future of a business growth. The first group is the business owners. The owners should acquire extra Knowledge and Skills in System / Business understanding and design besides their own core-competency and core-skills (e.g. medical specialisation as per above example). If the core-competency is compared to the master bedroom of a house, it would be ridiculous to engage carpenter, interior decorator, plumber etc. and let them have a free hand to install whatever they wish without a overall master plan and architecture of the house. Similarly the overall design of a business system must be well conceived with its vision and direction before an owner engage any service provider (e.g. IT services). (refer my homepage articles no. A13 "An Open Letter to Business Owners, Directors, Shareholders and Investors")

The second group is a new group of professionals who have the Knowledge and Skills as Organisation Observer and Thinker and Facilitator in Business System Design. One of the goals of these professionals is to coach and transfer quickly the necessary Knowledge and Skills to the key personnel of the organisation that he or she works with. (refer my homepage article no. A16 "Are you still Pre-occupied with "Boxes" in your Organisation?")

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