The end of ‘Rip-and-Ship’?
Jinfo Blog

24th October 2008

By Tim Buckley Owen

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‘Searching and finding information is just one part of the process of business research. Many researchers feel that some people in their organisations perceive that as their value. The term “rip-and ship” is one many researchers would like to never hear again.’ It’s a wearisomely familiar scenario, quoted in this instance by Ellen Maccabe and Ken Sickles in a recent Factiva webinar http://digbig.com/4xsjh presenting findings from a Dow Jones study on the evolving role of the business researcher. Encouragingly, though, over half of the researchers they surveyed are now located in a specific business unit, compared to just over a quarter in a centralised research department, with the result that twice as many researchers are expecting to do more analysis than those who say they simply find and forward information and facts. This should give beleaguered business information professionals some cause for hope as the economic crisis and its unemployment fall-out continue. And so, too, should a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit on corporate strategies for information governance. Few executives would disagree that strategic use of corporate information is critical to success, the EIU says. Yet only 38% of those it surveyed http://digbig.com/4xsbj said their companies have a formal enterprise-wide information governance strategy. Enforcing policies company-wide and gaining support from managers are two of the obstacles companies encounter, says the EIU’s report, The Future of Enterprise Information Governance. But the biggest single challenge, cited by 40% of respondents, is identifying the cost/risk/return tradeoffs of managing information company-wide. On the plus side, though, two thirds of the enterprises in the EIU survey have adopted policies about how information should be stored and shared among employees and stakeholders – and some are setting up formal governance bodies to action them. Again, this should be music to the ears of apprehensive corporate information professionals. And thirdly, it’s a fairly safe bet that there’s going to be more regulation and compliance, rather than less, in the aftermath of the banking collapse. So a new review by Outsell of the legal, tax and regulatory information market – purchase details at http://www.outsellinc.com/store/products/771 – is also timely. Forecasting that the sector is likely to outperform the information industry as a whole over the next few years, Outsell also points out that the compliance industry remains very fragmented and diverse and that, in corporate markets, most compliance work and other regulatory processes are handled by non-lawyers. If information professionals already can, and do, handle the complexities of multiple information subscriptions, then the equivalent complexities of regulation and compliance seem an obvious area to expand into. Intelligence analysis, information governance, compliance management. ‘Rip-and-Ship’ may no longer require the information skills that it once did – but these activities certainly do.

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