Elsevier

Information & Management

Volume 11, Issue 5, December 1986, Pages 211-216
Information & Management

Briefings
Strategy of information management (?)

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Abstract

Information management seems to be the “in” subject of the decade. However, it remains an elusive target. It is suggested that the problem lies in the assumption that we are dealing with information management, as of it were solely concerned with the supply of information. We argue that it would be more fruitful to think in terms of managing information technology, in view of its perceived increasing strategic interest to organizations. The subject is treated from both an historical and organizational perspective.

For the time being, the ideal and reality still seem to be poles apart. On the one hand, we find that, despite a serious lack of sound insight, information technology has already been absorbed by most organizations; on the other hand, it is clear that for today's strategy, simple extrapolation does not suffice. We are learning how to bridge the gap in understanding, so that information technology may be actively exploited to strengthen whatever other activities an organization seems to find important for its competitive advantage.

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There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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Arnoud W. Zijlker graduated at the technical university of Delft, Netherlands, in 1955 in Process Technology at the faculty of Applied Physics. He subsequently held various engineering and managerial jobs in the chemical industry and attended a Postgraduate Business School (“Stichting Bedrijfs-kunde”) in Rotterdam in 1966/67. In 1970 he assumed responsibility for “automation” in one of the divisions of Akzo n.v. and in 1973 he was appointed as corporate staff director “computer affairs” for this multinational chemical group. In this capacity he was responsible for corporate policy setting and coordination of applying information technology in all its aspects. Since October 1986 he set up as an independent consultant on the basis of this experience. Zijlker frequently speaks at conferences and universities about the various aspects of this subject and has been on the editorial board of I&M since its inception.

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