What business and IT problems can be caused by lack of common information and an enterprise IM strategy?

Lack of common information and an enterprise IM strategy doesn’t only lead to waste of financial and human capital resources through duplication but also prevent an effective working collaboration among the divisions. Since each division may be storing operating data in different formats so it is very difficult if not impossible to consolidate the data to have a reliable picture of the whole company’s performance. It also becomes difficult to see the impact of anyone division on the bottom line profitability of the company. Since a lack of common information prevents useful management analysis, so it is difficult to trace the problems back to the divisions that may be affecting the overall company.

Lack of enterprise IM strategy also makes it difficult to bring accountability into the organization. The divisions may select most of the projects on the basis of their impact on the divisional performance rather than the company’s overall performance thus, divisional goals take priority over company’s goals. Lack of IM strategy also hurts the marketing potential of the company because each division competes with each other for the customers rather than working with each other to identify cross selling opportunities.

It also becomes difficult for the management to implement companywide projects such as central supply chain network as well as develop competitive strategic plans due to minimum or no working collaboration among the divisions. The company may also have to spend additional resources to disseminate information across all divisions and the information data may have to be converted to the formats used by each division. It will also be a cumbersome task to gather reports from all divisions and then convert them into a common format while still bearing the risk that the errors may occur during conversion leading to wrong decisions. Since each division may be focused on direct competitors only, they may underestimate the indirect competitive threat from competitors offering bundled services and better customer service. Even if the divisions do develop competitive strategies, their plans will often collide with each other and risk confusing customers by sending different messages and diluting the corporate brand image.