We are excited to bring you our third part to this ten part series. If you haven’t seen the previous article, read about the second key, Appropriate IT Collaboration. Today we will discuss the third key to having a flawless IWMS implementation: ownership.
What do we mean by “ownership”?
In an IWMS, there are many types of data. This data originates from different departments within a company. “Ownership” is who owns that data, or who from each respective department is responsible for inputting and keeping the data up to date. Every department must have someone in charge of this, not only for reasons such as confidentiality, but also organization while inputting and modifying the data in later dates.
The IWMS shows financial information, employee information, lease information, geographic information, technical information, and much more. Not one single department holds all the information for IP addresses, buildings, desks, chargeback, internal contact, etc. We at RSC encourage the departments responsible for these varying sources of information (IT, Corporate Real Estate, HR, Finance, etc.) maintain stringent ownership. If you’re in IT, and notice John Doe is not in the IWMS, it is NOT your responsibility to update the record to include him. It IS your responsibility to contact HR and encourage them to update or sync their data to ensure all employee information is current. Part of this ownership is running an employee synchronization on a regular basis as changes occur within a company.
What happens when ownership is established? What happens when it isn’t?
When a strict ownership of data is created, there is no confusion when it comes to reporting. If any information seems inaccurate or flawed, everyone knows who has stewardship over what pieces of information and who is ultimately responsible for the data. The data then stays pure. With clean data and clear business processes on who manages what data, it is possible to get a 95-98% accuracy rate on all data. When the data is accurate, the reports are accurate. When reports are accurate, a company is able to make better strategic decisions. Conversely, when ownership is not defined, data pours in from multiple areas. The data may have duplicates or inaccuracies. Without strict ownership of data, maintaining clean, organized, and accurate data is extremely difficult and creates bad reporting, which, consequentially, creates mistrust of the IWMS.
For these reasons, RSC firmly believes ownership is the third most important key to a successful IWMS implementation. An IWMS that cannot be trusted will not benefit your company. Successful reporting and results from and IWMS starts at the beginning stages of implementation when the data is being added to the IWMS and everyone fulfills their role in keeping the data up to date from then on.