Double-headed survival advice
Jinfo Blog

16th November 2010

By Tim Buckley Owen

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More information managers than ever are assuming responsibility for internal as well as external content, while they are somewhat less likely to foot the bill for enterprise-wide vendor contracts. There’s also been a big increase in content delivery to mobile devices over the last three years. All these findings come from Outsell’s new Information Management Trends and Benchmarks survey for 2010 (purchase details at http://digbig.com/5bcwyj) – and they make for an interesting comparison with two recent FreePint reports covering comparable territory: its Economic Impact survey (outline at http://web.freepint.com/go/about/press/61190 – purchase details at http://web.freepint.com/go/shop/report/1709), and its Enterprise Market for Mobile Content report, sponsored by Reed Elsevier and the Financial Times (outline at http://web.freepint.com/go/about/press/61284 – report available at http://ftcorporate.ft.com/resources/ – registration required). In an Outsell Insight blog on the findings of Roger Strouse’s benchmarking report, Joanne Lustig comes up with three implications for information managers. (Insights are normally only open to Outsell clients but this one is made available at http://digbig.com/5bcwyq together with a free trial offer.) Diversify to survive is Joanne’s first piece of advice – improving productivity through reducing end user search failure rates, and building strategic knowledge assets to ensure that users get what they need at the right point in the workflow. Meanwhile FreePint’s Economic Impact survey is peppered with Opportunity points identified from respondents’ comments by lead researcher Robin Neidorf – including prioritising services based on mission and strategic priorities, redefining jobs and moving more to end user ‘self service’ for research. Manage the money, says Joanne Lustig; as funding for enterprise contracts shifts away from the corporate information centre, vendor portfolio management becomes more important than ever – especially as opportunities increase for vendors to sell directly to end users. So respondents to the FreePint survey speak of managing information resources for end users as well as the information team, making a business case for managing content purchase centrally, and concentrating products with fewer suppliers to leverage depth of relationship and value for money. Get on board the device train is Joanne’s last piece of advice, noting that information managers’ uptake of mobile devices for delivery of content is still small overall. Results from FreePint’s interviews for its Mobile Content report certainly bear this out. Interest in mobile content options among information managers and content purchasers is ‘lukewarm to downright cold’, Robin Neidorf reports. Why? Publishers are busy developing mobile content while information managers are more concerned with mobile workers, and whether they really need that content when on the go. There are technological and security issues in deploying mobile applications enterprise-wide. And better alignment of content with workflow is needed – in mobile applications as all others. Two organisations, three reports, remarkably convergent results. Useful stuff here for information managers – and vendors.

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