9 Best Practices for Implementing Enterprise Information Management (EIM)

The end game of Enterprise Information Management (EIM) is refining raw information into a valuable enterprise asset. What makes information/data valuable is a function of:

• The nature of the information/data in question
• The ways the proprietors of that information/data can envision using it
• The technology available
• The insight, talent, and skill of those charged with executing EIM strategy.

Thus, while it’s common to think of EIM as tech-driven, the most successful EIM strategies are actually far more business-driven than one might expect. Here’s a look at best practices planning and executing an EIM strategy:

Approach it from a pain-point perspective

Perhaps your marketing department is mired in data inconsistencies and duplications, making communications-driven campaigns unwieldy and inefficient. Perhaps the rapidly evolving set of regulations and standards applicable to your business means your compliance program is straining to aim at a moving target. Perhaps you’re a provider, and the six different payers with whom you’re under contract have six different sets of forms and requirements. If you’re thinking about adopting EIM, you probably already have in mind some of the challenges you believe can be addressed through better information management. Such challenges can create concrete business cases you can present to potential executive sponsors and which can form a foundation for assessing the success of your strategy.

Get your stakeholders involved from the get-go

Involving your stakeholders in brainstorming and strategic discussions is, itself, a low-tech form of information management. That’s because EIM is best positioned as a way of supporting critical business activities. Where do your identified pain points interfere with the key business priorities of your stakeholders? How can they be addressed through information management?

Assess your baseline

What’s your baseline level of information management? What are the systems you’re currently using? Who are the vendor(s)? How long are the contractual relationships meant to run? What’s your organization’s approach to information governance?

Secure executive sponsorship

One or more strong executive sponsors can be helpful in securing the necessary funding and support for an EIM initiative. You’ll want to marshal your allies right at the outset, keeping them informed and on-board and available to manage points of friction.

Cultivate enterprise awareness

Congratulations, you understand the need for EIM. But not everyone does. At least not yet. Communicating the need for EIM, the challenges it addresses, unrealized value of information as an asset will go a long way toward readying the people in your organization for the changes envisioned. Overall, your organization needs to be “ready” for EIM, and here are some factors to consider in assessing that readiness.

Adopt a phase-in approach to implementation

You may have a global/big-picture vision of what your organization can achieve as a result of implementing comprehensive EIM, and while EIM is, at its core, an enterprise-wide strategy, it can only be accomplished in manageable bites. But your overall plan should be global and take into account how each phase may affect the next one and the big picture overall. For more specific guidance, each of the factors identified here are equally applicable to EIM as they are to digital transformation in general.

Come up with objective standards for measuring success

The best argument for moving from the first phase to the second and the second to the third, and so on, is results. Ideally, you’ll come up with a way of objectively measuring those results before you begin EIM implementation.

Start with a quick-and-easy win

Starting with a project that’s relatively quick to implement and evaluate, and that’s likely to be a win, will go a long way toward cultivating the continued support and cooperation of your sponsors and stakeholders.

Choose the right partner

EIM implementation requires more than a technology vendor and more than a service provider. EIM implementation requires a strategic partner, one that’s experienced in all aspects of comprehensive EIM planning and implantation. Ideally, your EIM partner will have experience in EIM planning and implementation within your particular industry, as well as in working with customers around the same size as your organization.

As a global leader in business process optimization, Exela works with over 4,000 customers in more than 50 countries and in numerous industries, including banking, finance, healthcare, legal, manufacturing, the public sector. Although we count over 60% of the Fortune® 100 among our customer roster, we work with organizations of all size and on projects of all imaginable scale. We’d welcome the opportunity to talk to you about your organization’s specific challenges and needs.