Business concept and information strategies
Abstract:
There is a need for strategic planning and professional management of such an important and valuable asset as information. Corporations and organisations annually lose large sums due to deficits in information management. The strategic business development and planning entail the formulation of the business concept, setting down the information strategies and the long-term goals, and the formulation of strategies for implementation, evaluation and follow-up. The business concept is an important part, which consists of the formulation of vision, goals and the commission, to identify the stakeholders, to investigate and map the needs, to formulate a value proposition to confirm which benefits and value the LIS function delivers to the parent organisation, to analyse the consequences and risks, and to prioritise among the alternatives. Once we have formulated our business concept and have got our information strategies in place, we have done much of the work of strategic business development.
Before you build a better mousetrap, it helps to know if there are any mice out there. (Mortimer B. Zuckerman)
Information is a valuable asset. Like other assets it gains its value when used, but unlike many other assets it can be used over and over again without ever being used up. Most companies and organisations are well aware of how dependent they are on fast and secure access to good and reliable information to perform their activities and to make informed decisions. Yet there are often serious defects in the process of obtaining and managing information. Surveys have shown that companies suffer large annual financial losses due to these defects. A survey conducted in 2004 among 600 US companies showed that each employee spent an average of 3.5 hours per week searching for information without success. Three hours were used to recover information and 2.3 hours to get archived material. For a company of 1,000 employees who are dependent on information to do their work, this additional time implied an annual cost of more than US$13 million at the time when the survey was conducted.1
According to a survey made by the British firm Vanson Bourne including 660 managers in Europe and Australia, top executives spend 67 minutes a day looking for information for decision making. For marketing managers, the corresponding time spent was 90 minutes.2 If the time to obtain relevant information can be reduced through better structuring, better retrieval systems and better information competence, it will lead to increases in productivity as well as cost savings. Moreover, by preventing the loss of valuable information, quality assurance and guarantees are attained.
In 1998 I carried out a survey on the value of information in Swedish companies. The respondents were asked to estimate the cost and time it took to access and digest the content of electronic documents, journal articles, books, external and internal reports, and patent documents, and to state the economic value of each kind of information. In general companies saved time and money that far exceeded the costs of accessing and reading the information. Especially the patent documents gave good return on investment, mainly because the companies could avoid patent infringements and save precious development work. Other benefits of using the information were avoiding carrying out one’s own experiments and development work and instead take advantage of published findings – to avoid reinventing the wheel – is a strong incentive. To get knowledge and facts and to validate what is already known were mentioned as beneficial factors. The cost-benefit analysis showed that it is worth investing in information.3
Regardless of which organisation you work for, you often do not find what you are looking for among internal material because it is located on different servers or on an intranet with a non-transparent structure. In many organisations knowledge sharing is ineffective, resulting in the wheel being invented again and again. You have no overview of who holds what knowledge and what information sources the organisation has access to. All of this contributes to reduced efficiency and increased frustration in daily work.
Chun Wei Choo has aptly described some situations in companies and organisations which relate to how well they are performing regarding knowledge management and knowledge sharing. He calls them ‘windows of knowledge management’.4
All of these windows often exist side by side in the organisation; which window is dominant depends on the kind of information, the corporate culture and the situation. However, corporations and organisations need to work more systematically and professionally to overcome these issues of information management. Knowledge sharing is, in many cases, one area of severe deficiency, but also an area in which improvements can be made with good results. Information professionals have a natural role to play in this area. It is quite obvious that there is a need for strategic planning and professional management of such an important and valuable asset as information.
Table 4.1
| ‘We know what we know’ | ‘We know what we don’t know’ |
| A favourable but not so common situation except in very small organisations. | In this situation we are aware of the knowledge gaps and can do something about them. |
| ‘We don’t know what we know’ | ‘We don’t know what we don’t know’ |
| This situation is very common. We need to improve the knowledge sharing. | In this situation we are not even aware of the knowledge gaps, which is not an unusual situation but may lead to unpleasant surprises. |
A business that does not evolve with changes in the environment and its users’ current and future needs is in danger of stagnation. A stagnant business runs the risk of being shut down. This risk can be reduced by continuous strategic business development, even if it is never completely eliminated. Strategic business development means to call in question what we do and to be ready to change part of the business or the general direction of the business. It is also necessary to regularly review the portfolio of services to see what should be added and what should be removed. This may be stimulating in some cases but also painful in other circumstances. Sometimes we need to be tough and persistent to carry through necessary changes but that is inherent to business and we can comfort ourselves with the saying ‘only dead fish swim with the stream’.
The process of strategic business development entails the formulation of the business concept, setting down the information strategies and the long-term goals, and the formulation of strategies for implementation, evaluation and follow-up. This makes up the business plan where the general direction, the strategies, the goals, the challenges, future changes and other main issues of the services are discussed and described.
The business concept
The business concept rests on the mission, vision and goals of the parent organisation as well as the LIS function’s commission. Our own business concept includes our vision and goals and is led by the answer to two important questions:
Vision and goals
The vision for the business is the leading star that points out the general direction. The vision should be expressed in a short and concise way, preferably in just one sentence. The goal is more concrete and hands-on and expresses specific results that the business will achieve and what will be delivered to the various target groups.
The commission
There are many examples of businesses without an explicit commission and mandate. By ‘explicit commission’ I refer to a commission which is written down, discussed and confirmed by the principal – the parent organisation’s senior management. Some of the LIS functions have an explicit commission for their business. This commission is often formulated by the function itself and discussed and agreed with the principal. However, other LIS functions work without an explicit commission; they only have an implicit commission to guide the work. An investigation which I made among Swedish university libraries showed that a quarter of the libraries did not have an explicit commission. This was especially the case for the small and middle-sized libraries.5 We may feel it too formalised and limiting to formulate and anchor an explicit commission, but in the long run I am convinced that it is absolutely necessary. A function can operate without such a commission as long as the business continues as usual and no crises occur. However, in severe situations when the business may be in question, our clear commission is needed. Even if the actual formulation of such a commission often derives from our own department, it is important that it is approved by the principals. The parent organisation must be involved in, understand and agree to the commission and goals of the LIS function – not all of the details, but at a general level.
Examples of what the commission can contain in different types of LIS functions are shown below.
For a university library
to provide digital and printed materials, knowledge mediation;
to provide pedagogical resources, to train and to mentor students and lecturers;
to support research through information retrieval, user training and other bibliographic and library technical services;
to be responsible for scientific publishing and bibliometry;
to create premises for a functional and creative environment for working and studying;
to negotiate and acquire information, tools and consultancy;
to negotiate and acquire other relevant services and products.
For a competitive intelligence function in corporations, organisations or authorities
to be responsible for the competitive intelligence process in the organisation, including methods and ways of working;
to be responsible for continuously monitoring specific areas;
to be responsible for analyses and for preparing basic data for decisions;
to negotiate and acquire information, tools and consultancy;
to negotiate and acquire other relevant services and products.
For a library or information centre in corporations, organisations or authorities
to create a comprehensive solution for information as a strategic resource;
to provide information to priority target groups (for example research and development, marketing departments, intelligence functions and administrators);
to make the internal information structured and searchable (for example the intranet, reports of various kinds and the documents that should be traceable);
to negotiate and acquire information, tools and consultancy;
to negotiate and acquire other relevant services and products.
For a communication department
For a public library
to support general education and lifelong learning;
to support children’s and young people’s reading;
to provide literature as part of the cultural mission;
to negotiate and acquire relevant services and products;
to promote the development of information and communication technology;
The commission should be included in the strategic business plan, and if it has not been formulated before, this serves as a golden opportunity to formulate, discuss and confirm the commission and mandate of your business.
The stakeholders
The basis of all business is to know its stakeholders. We need to know who they are, not only our current stakeholders but also our potential stakeholders. We also need to know in which way the LIS function is relevant for them and in which way they are important for the development and existence of the LIS function. A stakeholders’ needs analysis should be done: what are the needs today that the business should meet, what are the needs they may have in the future that the business must meet? The analysis must also include the possible gaps there may be between the stakeholders’ needs and the services offered.
Even if we think we know our stakeholders quite well, it is not a bad idea to make repeated reviews and analyses of them now and then; changes occur and the reviews and analyses also serve as a briefing and learning process for the staff.
The stakeholders are all groups (existing or potential) that in various ways affect the business and/or are affected by it. They are the current users, competitors and substitutes, suppliers, partners, funders, the parent organisation’s senior management and lobbies. These groups are analysed from different points of view: current situation, future development, and also whether they could become potential users, funders, etc.
Examples of users are the public, all or part of the organisation’s staff, students and researchers, and other internal or external LIS functions.
Competitors and substitutes could be suppliers of information and services, (free) information on the Internet, the entertainment industry, booksellers, and other internal or external LIS functions.
Suppliers are often the same as competitors and substitutes, i.e. (free) information on the Internet, the entertainment industry, booksellers, and other internal or external LIS functions, but also vendors of IT systems for competitive intelligence and consulting firms.
Partners may be internal departments: IT, business development, e-communication, purchase department, etc. They may also be a part of external services as other LIS functions, consultants, cultural institutions, and educational institutions (schools and colleges, universities, adult education). Even suppliers are often partners.
Funders are the ones who allocate resources either directly or indirectly: the parent organisation’s senior management, politicians, various research councils and other funders and sponsors.
The parent organisation’s senior management is usually the top management in the organisation in which an LIS function appears.
Lobbies are of various kinds depending on the organisation involved. Many libraries have a group of ‘library friends’ who act under threat of closure of libraries or other crises.
Stakeholders have different degrees and types of interest in the business and are of varying importance for the operations. A stakeholder analysis therefore includes prioritising the different stakeholders as a means of focusing the business and the marketing. A consequence/impact analysis can be used for the prioritisation (see Chapter 8). In general, however, the main groups are users, funders, parent organisation’s senior management, and competitors and substitutes. The present knowledge of the users is usually good, especially for today’s needs and preferences.
Knowledge of current funders and the parent organisation’s senior management is equally quite good; however, there is often a need to become more visible to those groups. Other groups, for example competitors and substitutes, may not be well known and may require systematic surveillance and analysis.
The group users are usually split up into smaller segments which are targets for parts of or for the entire business. It is important to include even potential users. Examples of such segments are:
for competitive intelligence or corresponding functions: the parent organisation’s senior management, business development, research and development, environmental department, communication department;
for university libraries: students, graduate students, researchers, disabled people;
for public libraries: children, adolescents, immigrants, disabled people;
for communication departments: the press, the parent organisation’s senior management, other managers, employees, trade unions.
The target groups should also be prioritised to gain knowledge of where to invest limited resources. The vision and goals of the parent organisation are indicative of the priorities and, for publicly funded business, the political goals.
After carrying out a stakeholder analysis the needs and demands must be identified. It may be natural then to focus on the group users, but members of other groups are often potential users that could be transformed into users. Therefore we should go through all stakeholder groups to see what we can offer each one.
The needs
For what reason do we carry out a needs analysis? This is the first question we must ask ourselves, because the answer to this question directs the focus and content of the analysis. One reason is obviously to gain knowledge of the organisation’s and stakeholders’ needs for services in our area: what kinds of services they need and for what purpose they need them. Another reason is that we want to improve our service offers and want to see whether the improvements lead to better and more satisfying and cost-effective services to the organisation and the stakeholders. Needs analyses can also be used to redirect the resources, call for more resources, plan competence development, and demonstrate utility and value. The needs analysis is an important basis for the business development.
Please note that needs and use are not identical. There are needs that are not reflected in current use, and use that may not reflect a necessity. For example, if the corporate library keeps popular motor and garden journals it may experience that these are well used. However, how necessary they are for the employees’ professional performance can be questioned. Even if they contribute to a cosy atmosphere at the workplace, we should consider removing them, unless of course creating a cosy atmosphere is part of our commission. The overall mission and goals of the parent organisation must always be governing, not individual stakeholders’ special interests.
The investigation of the needs should be unbiased and be made when there is no financial pressure. One usual fault is to carry out the needs analysis in turbulent times, for example when the business is facing the threat of diminishing resources. Then the analysis is often too narrow and too influenced by leading stakeholders’ positions and preconceived opinions on the issue. Under such circumstances the analysis will lose both credibility and usefulness.
The identification of needs is made with the help of user surveys, user interviews, the exploitation of knowledge in the team, literature studies, and studies of other related activities. In particular, the need and demand for LIS services and for information and literature are investigated. Within companies, authorities and universities it is, as mentioned earlier, the parent organisation’s mission, goals and activities that ultimately determine the needs for services and information content. In these organisations, setting up systems for qualitative information management, effective competitive intelligence and processes to capture, make available and disseminate reliable, relevant and targeted information are main aims.
Public libraries with their much wider target group have a broader commission, including support of adult education and lifelong learning as well as a cultural and emotional mission.
Along with the needs analysis, the current situation is investigated to find out how well the current services and today’s and future needs match and if there are any gaps. The need and gap analyses are conducted by well-thought-out questions. The answers should serve as guidance for the strategic planning and therefore they should neither be too detailed nor too wide. In the following paragraphs there are examples of some areas and appropriate questions.
Information provision and competitive intelligence
What do workflows and decision processes look like in the organisation? For what decisions, processes and operational tasks is information needed?
Which subject areas are relevant and in which of these is information needed?
What current and future IT tools are used or will be used? In what form, therefore, is information needed – print, digital, to tablets, to the mobile phone, to the desktop?
How fast is information delivered today and what are the needed delivery times?
What are the current ways of finding information and what are the preferable ways of finding the information?
Is condensed, consolidated information or analysed information delivered today, or is delivery of ‘raw data’ preferred? What are the needs of condensed, consolidated or analysed information?
Case: information audit
At the packaging solutions company Tetra Pak in Lund, Sweden, where I worked for a long period as manager of the corporate library, we wanted to evaluate the performance of the library in relation to the needs of the corporation as part of a systematic quality work. The purpose was to evaluate how well the corporate library met the need for information and information management of Tetra Pak’s global research and development business. A team was put together consisting of five managers and key persons from different business areas in Sweden and abroad. To ensure neutrality, no one from the library was part of the team. The team worked very intensively for three days. They interviewed key stakeholders and the library staff and took part in steering documents and other relevant documentation. The result was analysed and a report was done which contained not only the analyses but also recommendations. It was very useful for the library as it showed us in which areas we performed well to meet the needs and where we had gaps in competence and performance. The competence gap regarding materials science and chemical engineering was especially pointed out. This comment led to us employing an engineer to join the team.
The value proposition
A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library. (Westheimer’s Discovery) (Frank H. Westheimer, Professor of Chemistry)
That our business may be ‘good to have’ is not a sustainable argument for its existence. It consumes resources and must generate value for its company or organisation. Some examples of how the business could generate value are when it:
contributes to better informed decisions;
contributes to higher quality of work;
The value and benefits of the business can be difficult to measure with objective measurements. I deal with measurement issues in the section ‘Measure and evaluate’ in Chapter 6.
When it comes to analysing benefits and value, it is important to be as specific as possible and to fill the examples with concrete content. To provide best practice and success stories is one way to do it. The success stories should preferably be taken from within the organisation, but examples from other organisations can also be used, especially if they come from similar activities.
Case: a success story
At a pharmaceutical company the researchers had heard about a new method to use in clinical trials. They wanted to know more about it and asked an information specialist to find information about how to apply this method in the clinical trial. The information specialist used her skill to go a step further and to start by investigating whether the method was accepted by the authorities. It turned out that this was not the case. The method was immediately abandoned and the cost savings by having this early information was estimated by the researchers to be £250,000.
Consequences and risks
A good tool for business development is to assess the consequences of different options to get a picture of what it means to the business if we choose this or that direction. The consequences should be compared with the impact the option in question has on the organisation’s activities to be able to judge whether the consequence is of great importance or not. In Chapter 8 there is a description of how to make an impact analysis. I recommend carrying out the analysis as a team and inviting representatives from important stakeholders to participate. In most cases the assessment is subjective and therefore it is better not to do it under pressure, for example when faced with downsizing. This is due to two reasons: first, judgement is influenced by the circumstances, and second, the analysis may lose credibility.
The result of the analysis is used to see what effects an improvement process may have, to make a better estimation of which direction the business should take and whether the improvement is a real improvement and not just a change. The analysis helps us to prioritise and to focus.
It is not just the result of the impact analysis that is interesting. The actual process to get there means, if you carry it out in the staff group, that the business is questioned and discussed thoroughly. This in turn helps to increase the understanding of why we implement a change and gives us solid arguments to get the entire organisation on track. It is particularly important if we are about to undertake radical changes.
Priorities
It is difficult to choose. To focus on and prioritise one thing means that we have to drop something else. How do we know that we have made the right choice? The things we dropped were perhaps those we should have focused on. Nevertheless, we must prioritise. In all business it is important not only to add new services but also to remove old ones. If we just add new services without receiving new resources for them, all activities will suffer from reduced resources. This may lead to inferior quality and frustration among the staff as well as among the users. To remove an existing service is often not easy; disappointed and even angry users may complain that their needs are not met. To cope with such reactions we must know why we are making a certain priority and what services we offer instead. The way we anchor and communicate the changes to which stakeholders and in which order is essential for a smooth change process.
Case: prioritising under pressure
A library in a Swedish public authority was facing reduction of the workforce by one staff member. At the same time the senior management wanted to modernise the library and change the general direction from focusing on holding physical books and journals to spending more efforts and resources on e-services and e-media. So far the staff at the library had bought all the books and reports that the employees needed in their work as well as cataloguing them. But given the reduction in personnel and the change of focus at the library, it was decided that these purchases should be managed by the employees themselves through a selected book agent and not by the library. It had the consequence, of course, that the books could not be found through the catalogue anymore, but as most of them were located in employees’ offices, they were hard to find physically even if they appeared in the catalogue. This decision aroused much discussion and commotion in the workplace. Some users in particular thought that a very important service had been lost and that employees had to spend their precious time ordering books. (The librarians’ time was obviously not as precious!) In this case the communication of the changes was concentrated on highlighting the benefits that would accrue to the entire organisation when the library’s resources would instead be used to obtain the e-media and to perform or provide computer-based literature research.
Prioritisation is a natural part of an information strategy that will form the basis for strategic business development. A conscious prioritisation based on an impact and consequence analysis and an assessment of the value proposition of each service provides a sound basis for strategic choices as well as a means to communicate those choices.
Information strategies
Information strategies are in this context referred to as ‘the way in which strategies for information management, information and literature provision, and competitive intelligence in an organisation optimally support the business processes and the mission and goals of the organisation’. As mentioned in the first chapter, it is about the information which the employees in a company or an organisation need to carry out their work or the literature a public library should provide. The information may come from outside or already exist in the organisation. Communication strategies for information and communication about the organisation made to the employees and the organisation’s stakeholders are not dealt with here.
Included in information strategies are:
strategies for integration of the LIS function in the parent organisation’s core business;
Strategies for integration
The LIS function is, in most organisations, a support function. How well we succeed in fulfilling our mission to be a true support for our organisation depends on how well we are integrated in the core business of our company or organisation. Integration is a necessity for LIS functions. During my own career I have seen many examples of businesses that have failed in the integration aspect. At worst, they have acted like an isolated island with no other connection to the parent organisation than to be the provider of services on request. Such functions are very vulnerable and stay at risk of being shut down because the parent organisation often does not feel that they contribute sufficiently to the fulfilment of the mission and goals. This eventual opinion of the parent organisation may be due to ignorance but also to the fact that the parent organisation’s needs are not met adequately.
Case: the embedded library
A library at a large global corporation is continuously working with business development in pace with changing business needs. The focus has increasingly become to work with competitive intelligence and patent information. The library manager has systematically mapped the various networks for competitive intelligence in the corporation and has joined the most important ones. This has resulted in the library now being perceived as a key provider of competitive intelligence and in particular the function that continuously monitors, analyses and reports on competitors and new technologies. The library also provides a methodology with integrated information research and analysis that has shown to produce good results. The chief librarian is convinced that the library would have closed had it not actively worked for participating in networks and producing results within important business processes. It even survived the later years of severe economic crisis.
A good integration helps us to get more and deeper knowledge of our company or organisation and its needs. We get to know managers and other key employees and how to use them as ambassadors for the business. At the same time the awareness of the role and services of the LIS function grows in the organisation and the use of it becomes a natural part of the work. The chances increase dramatically for hearing about and getting involved in projects where our expertise is needed.
Questions you should ask yourself when formulating integration strategies are:
Which key processes is the LIS function supporting?
How do we get the LIS function to be used as a natural part of these processes?
What alliances should we make?
Which networks should we join?
Which important meetings should we attend?
How should we develop the business in dialogue with important stakeholders?
Strategies for financing and competence
The resources that are available to us are funds for ongoing activities, resources for investment and staff, and last but not least the skills and abilities of the staff. Our aim is not to get as many resources as possible but to get adequate resources to provide services, information and tools with sufficient quality. (Please note that I use the word ‘sufficient’ and not ‘high’ quality.) In order to get the measure of ‘adequate’ resources, we must first determine the level of ambition for the services. The ambition level is a result of the reconciliation of the three factors ‘time’ (staff time), ‘quality’ and ‘money’ (funds for purchasing media, tools, consultancy, etc.). We cannot optimise all three levels and simultaneously obtain the highest quality, minimum cost and minimum time. We can get high quality and speed of execution, but consequently at a higher cost. High quality and less money spent can be achieved at the price of devoting more staff time. Fast and cheap usually means lower quality (‘quick and dirty’).
The general demands from the parent organisation, the current situation and which problem is to be solved will determine our ambition level. There are cases where we need very high quality because there is a risk of catastrophic consequences otherwise. The database used for reporting incidents and security at nuclear power plants must for example be of such superior quality. There are also cases where ‘quick and dirty’ must prevail. If there is a repeatedly unforeseen need of quick information in our organisation, the general ambition level will be low in terms of quality but high in terms of time. In many cases we try to perform at an ambition level that is somewhere in between: a decent quality at a reasonable time effort and cost, i.e. ‘good enough’. (This is of course more easily said than done.) However, if there is a need for superior quality we should fight to get the appropriate resources to obtain this.
The strategic issues primarily relate to how we determine the level of ambition and how we can ensure that we have enough resources, enough personnel and the right skills to conduct the business in the coming years:
What ambition level is right in our organisation and in the situations we meet?
How do we secure sufficient funds for day-to-day activities?
How do we secure sufficient funds for investments?
What financial balance should we have between media, equipment and tools, and personnel?
How do we secure enough staff to fulfil our obligations?
How do we ensure that we have a good mix of age, gender, background, etc., in the staff group?
How do we plan for and ensure future requirements for competence and skills in relevant areas?
Managing and using information resources
Included in ‘information resources’, in this context, are information and literature media, database/search services and internal information. Thus it is text, database/search services, pictures, movies, etc., that are produced internally in the organisation or externally in the outside world. Information resources are available in different forms and formats: books, journals, reports in physical or digital form such as DVD or online. Information resources are made available in different ways: physical form for loan or purchase, digital form for downloading or streaming from servers, intranets or the Internet to the desktop, mobile phone or smart phone, tablets, DVDs and other current and future equipment. Nowadays there are a lot of publishing and reading formats and the number will certainly grow as old forms continue along with the new emerging ones.
Internal information can be technical reports, customer and market reports, studies, intelligence reports, presentations, memoranda, etc., which employees produce and ‘publish’ on servers and intranets.
our priority target groups’ current and future needs of content;
our priority targets groups’ current and future experience and maturity when it comes to using the various forms and equipment that media can be presented in and their general information and communication technology skill;
our priority target groups’ current and future information competence.6
The LIS function’s resources and competence will probably not be enough to cover all needs of content and all needs of the forms and equipment in which the content can be delivered. The strategies are subsequently about the right prioritisation in current services as well as looking at which future area we should focus on and increasing or developing additional competence.
The strategic issues to deal with are about how we create the conditions for an optimal mix of information resources, both concerning content, form and means of delivery. It is about our ambition level and about what is most efficient given the funds available: what is to be done at the LIS function and what is to be done by the users themselves? Regarding the availability of the information there is a well-known relationship between how much time the LIS function spends on organising the information and how much time the user spends on finding it. The more time we spend in organising the information, the less time it takes to find it again over space and time (at least up to a certain point). The challenge is to find the right balance that is effective in the organisation and ‘politically’ possible (the time spent by the LIS function is easier to measure than the time the users spend). Finally, strategies to ensure that the information resources which the organisation or company has invested in and which are made available by the LIS function are used by those who need them in their work.
Selection, content and form
How do we keep and develop our knowledge of our target groups’ current and future information competence and information and communication technology skill?
How do we ensure that we have the right mix of information resources to meet current and future needs?
How do we obtain the strategically important internal objects and documents?
How will the selection process take place and which groups should be involved in this process?
How do we ensure that we have good vendor portfolio management, a process to select and manage suppliers of content and systems?
How do we ensure that we convey information in ways and by means that are sustainable for the future?
Organising, delivery and use
Which level of ambition will be the optimal one for the work to organise information and to make it searchable?
How should we make our prioritisations between using the funds on internal or external information, what objects are most important for our company or organisation to organise and make searchable? (For those LIS functions that manage even internal information.)
How do we ensure that we have the right tools for this work and that the tools are sustainable for future development?
Are we the intermediary for the information or should we focus on self-help?
How do we participate in the process of developing our users’ information competence?
Is training required and, in that case, should it be made in-house or outsourced?
How much effort should we put into informing, promoting and marketing the LIS function to reach our current and potential target groups?
How do we deal with copyright issues? (If the organisation or company has a department for legal issues, I recommend cooperating with this one.)
Once we have formulated our business concept and have our information strategies in place, we have done much of the work regarding strategic business development. What remains is to plan the business: the direction, focus and range of services. A business plan which is based on a sound commission statement and well-thought-out information strategies signals professionalism and enhances confidence in the business. It also stands up to examination and questioning and increases the staff’s motivation and pride in their work.
Voices from practitioners: Helena Vallo
Librarian/Public Relations Officer, Administrative Court in Gothenburg
By going out, by asking and discussing I spread the image of what a modern library can provide. A library was believed to consist of bookshelves, but now focus has shifted to include competences and qualifications.
How do you work with business development and planning?
The Administrative Court consists of four judicial departments and one administrative department. It has approximately 230 employees. My function, Library and Information, is located in the Administrative Department. Each department creates its own business plan and the plans are thereafter added together with the Court’s business plan. There are clear directives for which parts should be included in the plan. My business is part of the Administrative Department’s plan, but is also part of the Court’s grand plan. In addition, I write a more detailed business plan for my own needs. I use it to prioritise and evaluate. It determines how I will work and what to focus on.
Working with a business plan is also to anchor the business. My boss is my sounding board for my business, but there is no one else but me who has detailed knowledge of the business. It is part of my mission to have concrete proposals for activities. The business plan is also used for tuning and evaluation of activities. The business plan can be used during the ordinary development meetings with the boss to see what you have accomplished, if you have done what you should do.
I also check with the users what they need. The training courses I run are evaluated with an online form. I inform new employees of the library and I am also present at the different departments’ meetings to inform and collect input from the working groups.
The foundation of the business plan was laid when I was the project manager of a library study. The project had a broad mandate to investigate the Court’s need for a library function and what a modern library should resemble. The investigation included finding out the information requirements, how the employees work with information today, the shortcomings and problems that are related to information supply and to develop proposals for solutions. To come up with a proposal for my own role and function was also part of the project.
Over six months, I held interviews and workshops. At first I asked directly about the need for a library, but then I was told: ‘We don’t need it so much.’ After that I started to ask open questions instead about the working process, how the employees perceived the situation, what sources they used and so on. In this way I found out what their needs were.
I put together a target document for the library with the purpose, commission statement, and short- and long-term goals. This document was presented to the management, which approved it. One side effect was very good marketing. By going out, by asking and discussing I spread the image of what a modern library can provide. A library was believed to consist of bookshelves, but now focus has shifted to include competences and qualifications. The Library and Information function should serve as a centre for competences and professional support regarding information issues. This image gave quite different pre-conditions for my coming work.
Do you have any example of a plan that was successfully implemented?
The library study is one example. On the basis of the chapters ‘librarian’s role’, ‘the physical library’, ‘the electronic library’, ‘business intelligence, knowledge-sharing and document management’ and ‘education, information and marketing’ I made concrete action plans and a lot has already been implemented. These were practical and useful things such as developing the intranet so as; to give it a structure and to gather all entrances to information onto one web page. Other things were to bring order to the physical library and to move it from a low-traffic area to the centre of the premises. The vision that the library should be the heart of the business was thus met. My role and what I can contribute was clarified and formalised in a job description. Another activity was to develop a training course on information retrieval in European law together with a colleague and another court.
From where do you get inspiration and ideas for business development?
From my network at other courts and professional associations.
From courses, ranging from one-day courses to university courses at distance.
I keep myself updated by reading journals, newspapers, blogs and mailing lists.
In the network we give each other advice on new reports, etc. I am also a member of the lunch book club, arranged by the Swedish Association for Information Specialists. In this we read and discuss books we have read. It gives one a lot to read but to discuss what you have read adds another dimension. Since I am on my own in this place of work I need to find venues to get input from colleagues in the same profession.
What are your top tips for engaging employees in change management?
That the employees here see the practical benefits and understand what is in it for them. Involve them early in the process so that they have a chance to make themselves heard. There is a big difference if change is forced top-down or if you yourself can influence the process.
To get everyone on board. There is always someone who finds changes inconvenient and who wants things to be as they always were.
To inform everyone continuously.
To inspire, for example bringing in someone from outside with different perspectives and start discussions.
How do you deal with new ideas that come from the staff?
Ideas are often coming from the lawyers, and that is great fun. These ideas you can absorb and use in the planning. It is, of course, not possible to implement everything and you cannot supply every need, but the starting point must be that I am here for the people who use my services and will implement what is sound and realistic. What I sometimes struggle with is the old-fashioned view of what a library function is. Many may think that we should buy more books and printed literature, that the library should rather have an archiving function make and physical resources available. Then it is great to have a business plan to show.
What are the biggest challenges for business development?
It is the implementation – that the plan is effectively used as a working tool and not just created and then forgotten. The business plan is not just something that you do by routine every year. It may feel like an extra job instead of a tool.
With such a view there is an obvious risk that you reuse what has been written last year, revise it a bit, and then send it to your superiors. Therefore it is important to try to break it down into concrete actions with targets and follow-up – then you see the real utility of the plan.
One challenge is to argue for the future of the business, for example that we need to follow the trend that more and more is published electronically and seize the opportunities that new technologies and social media offer. Another challenge is to avoid getting stuck in the current operations and to fail looking up to get a wider view.
What are your top tips for working with business development?
You really have to reserve time for it, for example workshopping with others where you focus entirely on business development.
Learning from each other, benchmarking with others and share their experiences.
Evaluate and follow-up is very important.
Involve employees in the development process and do not run it alone in your chamber. If the manager alone writes the business plan and nobody else understands it – it is not likely to be a success!
2‘Better data belies success’ (2007).
5Nelke (2009) (in Swedish).
6Information competence (a term I prefer instead of ‘information literacy’) is defined here as the ability to define the information needs, to efficiently search and filter the information, to critically examine the quality of the information and the sources and to understand the regulatory framework to seek and use information in an ethical and legal manner.