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Survey of business information services in corporate information services, based on in-depth interviews with leading business information managers. Key findings are: Business information budgets have been stable, with at least inflationary increases built in; Business conditions have been turbulent of late but this has had no real impact on the services to date; With more information rolled out to the clients' desktops, the services are all working to add value through a variety of approaches, including training, evaluation and analysis, business and client development, and generally undertaking more complex work; Some pressure on the staffing headcount in the services during the year; Recruiting suitable information professionals is a difficult process; Offshoring information and research work has not expanded significantly but more companies are considering this option; 'Techno-centric' knowledge management remains important in some companies, particularly law firms, but is fading as a practice in others; There is great interest and envisaged potential in social technology and Web 2.0 tools and techniques -- but not much serious deployment yet; Even in mature corporate information environments, marketing business information services is still seen as crucial by 90 per cent of respondents; Fifty-five percent of the services provide some kind of competitor information function, albeit not at a high level; A significant majority (75 per cent) of services support compliance functions such as 'Know your client' and anti-money laundering checks; Existing copyright provisions are seen as a barrier to effective information dissemination within companies by 80 per cent of respondents; LexisNexis takes over at the top of the expenditure league; The demand for information on Asian business markets is growing; Almost all services are committed to training users in the discovery and use of digital business information sources; The organization, management, and sometimes realignment of services is the highest strategic priority. View all 37 works published by Business Information Review |
 Business Information Survey http://bir.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/25/1/13
access restricted (by the publisher) to members/subscribers/customers only
peer-reviewed
Foster, Allan Business Information Review 2008
Abstract: Survey of business information services in corporate information services, based on in-depth interviews with leading business information managers. Key findings are: Business information budgets have been stable, with at least inflationary increases built in; Business conditions have been turbulent of late but this has had no real impact on the services to date; With more information rolled out to the clients' desktops, the services are all working to add value through a variety of approaches, including training, evaluation and analysis, business and client development, and generally undertaking more complex work; Some pressure on the staffing headcount in the services during the year; Recruiting suitable information professionals is a difficult process; Offshoring information and research work has not expanded significantly but more companies are considering this option; 'Techno-centric' knowledge management remains important in some companies, particularly law firms, but is fading as a practice in others; There is great interest and envisaged potential in social technology and Web 2.0 tools and techniques -- but not much serious deployment yet; Even in mature corporate information environments, marketing business information services is still seen as crucial by 90 per cent of respondents; Fifty-five percent of the services provide some kind of competitor information function, albeit not at a high level; A significant majority (75 per cent) of services support compliance functions such as 'Know your client' and anti-money laundering checks; Existing copyright provisions are seen as a barrier to effective information dissemination within companies by 80 per cent of respondents; LexisNexis takes over at the top of the expenditure league; The demand for information on Asian business markets is growing; Almost all services are committed to training users in the discovery and use of digital business information sources; The organization, management, and sometimes realignment of services is the highest strategic priority.
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