95This is the concluding chapter of Part I of this book, which has been devoted to information technology. The
previous two chapters have discussed computer systems (both hardware and software) and telecommunications and
networking—all central information technology topics. The fourth information technology component that is just
as critical as those three is the data that are processed by the hardware and software and sent through the network
both before and after processing. In fact, without the right data captured, stored, and disseminated, the other three
components have no value. This chapter focuses on the all-important data resource.
The data resource consists of the facts and information an organization gathers while conducting business and
in order to conduct business at all levels of the organization. The data resource’s components include numeric, text,
audio, video, and graphical data collected both within the organization and from sources external to it, as well as
the metadata, which describe the business and technical characteristics of the data resource. The variety and
volume of data that are available to organizations has led to data being recognized as a major organizational
resource, to be managed and developed like other assets, such as facilities, labor, and capital. In fact, many
observers of trends in business believe that the organizations that will excel in the twenty-first century will be those
that manage data and organizational knowledge as a strategic resource, understand the usefulness of data for
business decisions, and structure data as efficiently as they do other assets.
Organizations are now able to collect more data than ever before through normal business activity, through the
recording of data transactions from point-of-sale (POS) terminals and RFID readers, and via Web and electronic
commerce sites. And the rate of growth in data is enormous. It is not uncommon for an organization to double the
size of its data resource every 18 months. All this data can be an asset only if they are available and understood
when needed and purged when no longer useful; and this cannot occur unless an organization actively organizes
and manages its data. Financial resources are available to build a new plant or to buy raw materials only if a
financial manager and other business managers have planned for enough funds to cover the associated cash
requirements. A new product can be designed only if engineering and personnel managers have anticipated the
needs for certain skills in the workforce. A business certainly would not ever think about not planning and
managing facilities, labor, and capital. Similarly, data must be planned and managed.
The effort to manage organizational data is the responsibility of every business manager; some business
managers, often called data stewards, are given defined roles to manage specified kinds of data like customer,
product, or employee subject area data. In addition, a special management unit, usually called data or database
administration, often provides overall organizational leadership in the data management function. Furthermore,
some organizations have built knowledge management functions and appointed a chief knowledge officer. Every
manager in an organization has some financial, personnel, equipment, and facilities/space responsibilities. Today,
data must be added to this list of managed assets.