Some businesses and organizations have extra responsibility for accurate, reliable information because what they do has great impact. 

Automation Consultants is attuned to this extra responsibility, having served clients involved in medicine, jet engine production, retirement and insurance funds, and devices for corrective eye surgery, in addition to investors with 9 and 10 digit funds.

Although our systems are used to manage billions of dollars, the correct management of non-dollar information is often more important. We employ accounting for dollars as just one technique in our efforts to improve the quality of all information our clients use.

Marketing information sets the tone for a business or organization; it needs to be careful, complete, and effective. This also applies to a business’s or organization’s website. Another area sensitive to information quality is the support of clients and customers; if your information is not reliable, you will lose them, or worse, mislead them.  Perhaps a better term than information quality for what we prescribe is information integrity.

So, we encourage the customer relationship management paradigm for a business or organization, because it promotes information quality in both marketing and support.

Another way we improve information quality is by integrating software functions and manual flows to avoid redundant data entry. We also guard the integrity of our client’s data with proper backup, security, and error-checking procedures.

Automation Consultants has been emphasizing the importance of information quality for nearly 40 years, but awareness has recently peaked due to the increasing amount of misinformation on the Internet and social media.  Earlier, HIPAA, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and FDA 21 CFR Part 11 rules came into being because poor information quality led to some egregious problems.

Beyond these new requirements imposed by government, there are compelling reasons to improve the quality of your information systems. Problems do not have to be egregious to be costly and you don’t have to wait for the government to tell you how to run your business responsibly.  If you have visited many chatrooms, frequent social media, or follow politics, you know that misinformation and careless thought are pervasive in our culture.  The influence of these trends on operations is difficult to avoid in many businesses and organizations.

Chances are good that the information culture of your company can be holistically improved in many areas involving people, science, products, manufacturing, marketing, and business processes. Information is the blood of a business or organization and like a human being, the health of its circulatory system is a prime factor in productivity and longevity. Like a well-ordered mind, a business or organization functions better when confusion, anxiety, and errors are minimized with efficient information flow.

There is a circular relationship between information quality and how useful your business’s or organization’s information is:

1-High-quality information generates useful knowledge, so it is used often.

2-Information that is used often is continually scrutinized, so its quality improves as errors are uncovered and corrected.

Poor information quality has the reverse effects.