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Written by Diana Nutting
 Information professionals are often seen as peripherally providing a service to an organisation rather than being an integral part of the management of that organisation.
One way of overcoming this attitude is to develop information offerings as products which offer added value to the organisation. At its best,
this involves giving people the information they need to do their jobs at the point at which they need it, often before they have articulated the need. At Business Link for London, the information team addressed this problem by introducing a number of information products which it marketed aggressively as business solutions to the senior management team of which I was a member.
To get close to thinking of the business, every year we ran a series of ‘knowledge cafes' where we introduced a key topic of concern to the business, and to which we invited all employees. People were encouraged to contribute their knowledge of the topic and to pose observations and questions.
The overall findings of the knowledge cafe, including the information team's research on the topic, individuals' knowledge and the need for further research were developed into PowerPacks which were stored on our knowledge management system for future use and further development, allowing anyone who needed information on the topic to get up to speed very quickly.
But the product which really solidified the information unit's reputation in the business was ‘Know Before You Go'.
Helping advisers help clients
I had discovered when I joined Business Link for London that, although the team's skill set was relevant, to survive it needed to change its focus to fit the changing needs of the organisation and raise its profile with its internal market. The development of the Know Before You Go report was based on a clear business need: that of falling levels of customer satisfaction, as clients perceived that advisers were not well prepared for meetings and did not know enough about their industry sector, implying that our generalist advisers were not giving an impression of expertise or preparedness.
Each Know Before You Go report comprises:
- A review of the client's financial position, including profit and loss, balance sheet and benchmarking key financial ratios against others in its industry. We also included a credit check on the business
- Recent news about the client, major competitors and the industry sector
. - Market sector analysis including market size and share, trends and forecasts; this usually includes a SWOT analysis of the sector
- Likely effects of legislative or technological changes
- A list of relevant trade press
- A list of useful trade associations
- Forthcoming industry events such as exhibitions and trade fairs.
Many of Business Link's clients were extremely small, sole traders or newly set up, so some of this information can sometimes be difficult to find. We never needed to deal in information about large corporates or foreign companies and markets, so our skills in ferreting out information about tiny companies and niche markets were often stretched.
Developing a standard format
Know Before You Go was based on the team's strengths in finding UK current business information, but to maximise the effect the team devised a strict template with the same categories of information appearing in the same order, and the final report was limited to five pages. While the information unit knows all of our users by name and repute, this is a multi-site organisation with many people working from home, so few of them ever visit the office where the information team sit. Therefore, the known structure of the Know Before You Go report is very important, as there is little opportunity to discuss an individual user's needs.
A certain level of re-training and re-focus was required for the team, so that they could develop more analytical and critical skills in choosing, presenting and commenting on the information. For example, they learned to abstract information to construct a SWOT analysis, and they developed an understanding of financial ratios for the benchmarking part of the report.
Although there is nothing distinctive about the kind of information we provided from an information professional's point of view, our users and management perceived a business value to the products. It is a matter of:
- Presentation - the information is in an easily digestible format
- Relevance - they get only the information they need and do not have to read a whole market research report for the one relevant paragraph
- Predictability - the same type of information will always be there when they ask for a report
- Timeliness - reports are available in good time for the meeting
- Being seen as helping the adviser meet his targets for customer satisfaction and engaging with clients.
There were no added costs associated with the introduction of Know Before You Go, as we already subscribed to all the relevant information sources. It took no extra staff time, because we were better able to organise our time, rather than being always reactive.
Marketing the new product, and the team
It was important to internally market the product. We visited departmental and cross-functional team meetings to explain the new concept and get feedback from our users on their likelihood of using the product, and we made some minor adjustments to meet their needs. We also developed case studies of how useful individual advisers had found the service. Management buy-in was essential, so I explained the concept to the senior management team before we marketed to advisers as a whole.
We used the success of Know Before You Go as internal PR to raise the information unit's profile with decision makers and forged a new internal constituency for other kinds of work. The most effective method we found for this was the winning of an external award. We won the award for best information team in a business environment at the International Information Industry Awards and the effect internally was phenomenal. Suddenly this backroom, reactive, service-bound team was on the internal map and all sorts of new opportunities became available to us.
Often, for an information team, it is not clear how the information they provide impacts on the work of the individual user or on the organisation's bottom line. Productisation makes measurement of the return on investment of the business information unit much easier. We knew how many Know Before You Go reports we produced and we could measure their effectiveness on client satisfaction and interaction with clients. We introduced the product in the first place because of a stated need to increase market penetration and improve customer satisfaction. In the quarter following the introduction of Know Before You Go, there was a 14% increase in client perception that we were prepared for first meetings.
Previously the team had seen themselves as helpers rather than practitioners, and it is in soft skills and attitude that the change was most marked. Of these the most important were: becoming more proactive in the provision of information, developing creativity in the invention of new information products and an increased confidence in seizing opportunities to apply their information skills to allied areas.
Because we were now seen as expert and a key component of the future success of the organisation, we had the chance to grab new roles and we took responsibility for primary market research, knowledge management throughout the business and the source and supply all the information on our website which was aimed at our client group. Our role became to keep abreast of the business environment in our area and to keep Business Link for London informed at a strategic level. The value that the information team added to the business had become apparent to all.
Diana Nutting is a freelance information and knowledge management consultant, specialising in company and market information. She was previously Head of Information Strategy and Development at Business Link for London, where she was responsible for market intelligence, website content, customer research and knowledge management. Diana started her career as an academic librarian, before moving into market intelligence at, among others, Unilever and Parcelforce. She serves on the National Council of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.
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