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Posted by Sherman Whipple on February 14, 2000 at 12:26:00:
In Reply to: Follow up / Auditing / Else ?? posted by Carlos on February 14, 2000 at 11:35:06:
The process you seem to be describing is essentially what we call a management information audit. It is a service we have been providing for the past 19 years through managment consulting firms so their clients can both integrate their various information requirments with the sources of information, and then develop a structure within their organization for distribution. Essentially we serve as the third party to resesarch the research.
This type of audit is not, however, initiated by a resesarch company. This is because the work of any given research provider is such a small part of the total information infrastructure in the context of the total number of sources used by management. Nor, at least from our experinece, is it reasonable to determine a reliable metric for "final gains". The key benefit we have been been able to provide is more related to disclosing gaps in their information and recommeding appropriate methods to expand their insight, as well as discovering redundancies and wasted research efforts.
What is interesting is that, while one would imagine that the result of such a process would be an increase in research expenditures, from my experinece the exact opposite has been the case. Most of our engagments, particularly for the midsize to larger organizations, have resulted in a recommendation that would substantially reduce the annual research expenditure while profoundly increasing the scope and actionablity of the information they would be acquiring. For the smaller organizations and many of the newer ventures, the amount we recommend they invest, is higher than what they had been spending, but negligible in comparrison with security and insight they gain for future growth and profitablity.
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