BUSINESS
Setting up solid information management in your small business by Mark Atkins, Intraversed Pty Ltd
If you’ve never thought about information management (IM) because your business is small, then it’s time to reconsider. Setting certain structures in place now could enable growth for your business in the future. Small businesses aren’t subject to the same level of risk as large organisations due to IM problems. But the same IM principles can be applied to effective ends. Information is anything you create from running your business, so managing your information when you’re small doesn’t take much work. This includes all the important factors when running your business e.g., financial, inventory, and maintenance reports; regulatory and legal (including HR paperwork & policy manuals). There are three foundations to solid IM: 1. Build a culture that values information. Without this, it’ll be hard to get compliance with the processes you establish.
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2. Define your key language. Create a glossary of terms for your business’s functions – e.g., product, contract, asset – and categorise them by function – e.g., HR, Sales, Finance. Write clear and context-relevant definitions of these terms. Review with your team, ensuring the definitions work for everyone. Use language consistently, adhering to these definitions. This avoids confusion when you need to implement or upgrade IT systems and reporting. 3. Establish a register of key information artefacts. Register all your reports, contracts, and other important artefacts. Artefacts need to be kept up-to-date and retired when they’re superseded. Ensure your register includes where they are stored and who: • created them; • is responsible for checking validity; • to contact about errors in the artefact’s content; Believe me, we’ve worked in many big businesses who would have saved millions of dollars if they’d implemented these three foundations early on! Mark Atkins is a member of Georges River Business and a regular contributor. Register for free on Council's website.
