There are many who would argue, quite persuasively, that failures in transparency have led to many of the economic troubles that dominate the headlines today. Shareholders in major financial institutions didn’t have the tools to properly evaluate the risks posed by sub-prime mortgage holdings and other complicated financial instruments. Homebuyers often didn’t get the full story on the downside of exotic loan products that allowed them to buy bigger homes than they could really afford.
Information is critical – where accurate information doesn’t flow freely, the market can easily fail.
The same is true with information technology. IT has revolutionized the way we work, especially with the rise of ‘Enterprise 2.0’ allowing employees, customers and partners to interact virtually in new ways. In most companies, IT systems are critical to streamlining supply chains, improving productivity and safeguarding our most valuable data.
With such a vital part of our business infrastructure, transparency is essential. Employees must understand and properly use enterprise systems, so everyone in the organization can be confident in the quality of information that they produce. Departmental processes should be clear and uniform across the organization – again, to safeguard the quality of data and also make collaboration more seamless.
Finally, transparency in your company’s information technology operation improves accountability and leads to informed decisions about the future. IT investments impact the entire enterprise – assessing and prioritizing these investments is a process that must involve all key stakeholders, not just technology specialists. Making the full cost/benefit analysis of these choices transparent to key decision-makers is critical, preventing parochial or short-sighted moves.
Just as our accounting practice focuses on helping our clients achieve compliance with all appropriate standards of financial transparency, KSM Business Technology helps growing firms with transparency in their information technology operations – because clarity is the first step to success.
- Charlie Brandt
Director
Katz Sapper Miller - Business Technology