Are you falling into information debt?

Monetary debt is not necessarily a bad thing – it can accelerate wealth creation. The notion of ‘gearing’ is an old one and it is very effective if used with purpose, intelligently and with prudence. The rule of thumb is to borrow no more than 35% of the disposable income. Business or personal finances are the same – 35% gearing is the magic number.

Sadly, there is another type of debt that businesses and professionals can slowly fall into and before realising it, can find themselves in an impossible situation having to spend significant resources to ‘serve’ this debt and survive or else lose their market/customers. It is the Information Debt.

Let’s see how this works in reality…We all manage information. We either do this instinctively or by using some methods, systems and processes. That’s good but whatever we do and whatever we use to manage information, our success depends on:

1. Either we have this information or we don’t
2. Either we have this information when we need it or we don’t
3. Either we use this information or we don’t

There you are, the brutally simple and unadulterated truth! These are three properties of information that maintain (or not!) its value, which you should be using to successfully and profitably deliver your business. It is all very simple but critically important because this ‘value’ can go up and it can go down as well. How? You might have lots of information but it is not available when you need it (out of phase with demand) – value goes negative. Or you have all the information you might need but you do not use all of it because it is not obvious to you– value goes negative. Or you might not have a complete set of relevant information – value goes negative.

If you recognise these, then you see information as an asset to your business. And that’s great because by managing information as an asset you can avoid creating a gap between your business needs and your information capability. Many fell into this trap and found themselves facing a very frustrating dilemma: either spend significant resources to bridge that gap before their business becomes completely information-illiquid or admit loss of market segments.

i4cu answers these 3 questions and enables you and your business to use the full value of your information:

1. It brings all your information to your lines of business so you know what you have and what you need to have
2. It lets you see and access your information at the time and point of need, and
3. It provides you with the information in the context of the case (business line) you are working with so you can use it for maximum impact