The Tillman Information Audit®


Introduction

The Tillman Information Audit is an assessment study we offer to make the needs and availability of information, information flows and information gaps within your company transparent. The overall goal is to produce an integrated information strategy, which can be used as a basis for designing the content of Intranets, Competitive Intelligence Systems or Knowledge Management Systems or be the foundation of corporate information services like Market Research, the Library or a Competitive Intelligence department. As a positive side effect it will raise the awareness across the organisation of the value of information and the value of sharing knowledge.

Tuning your internal information to
the intelligence needs of today
 

We will review which information is created and needed across the organisation, which will result into a report providing:

Identification of the information needs;
 
An inventory of the available information and its value;
 
Identification of expertise and knowledge;
 
Identification of information gaps;
 
A review of the use of external information and how it may be used more effective and efficient;
 
A review of internal information resources, their value and what can be improved;
 
A mapping of the information flows and the current bottlenecks within those flows.

The Benefits

Today, information and knowledge are recognised as core assets of any organisation and are potentially the source of an organisation's key competitive advantage. A much better understanding of these assets and how they can be used to stimulate creativity and innovation are the main benefits of the Information Audit. Specifically an Information Audit will be used to identify how the organisation can:
Make better use of intellectual assets;
Make better use of external information;
Avoid inefficiencies and duplication;
Avoid information overload;
Save time and money through efficiencies.

Our Approach

We will do an assessment of the information needs, the availability of information and the culture and facilities to communicate this information. We will do recommendations to improve the availability of information and to optimise the environment in which it is communicated.

The Information Audit will be executed by face-to-face interviews with a cross section of all information users. They will be interviewed about their tasks and activities, "need-to-know" and "nice-to-know" information, information sources, how these sources are selected, accessed and used, the frequency of access, the value of the sources and the bottlenecks and specific wishes.
We will organise workshops with focus groups to stimulate sharing, test the conclusions and explore particular issues and challenges.

A Regular Process


An Information Audit is not meant to be a "one-time" process. The business environment changes, organisations change and the information needs and flows change. The Information Audit should be a regular feature based on the dynamics within your business environment. When we have executed an Information Audit at your company, we can offer you a two day training course on information auditing. So that you are able to up-date the results on a regular basis.

Combining with a Strategic Audit


In addition to the Information Audit, Rodenberg,Tillman & Associates also offers a Strategic Audit, which provides a framework for setting up a focussed competitive intelligence service based on your company's strategy. To integrate and optimise the information processes with the strategy process, we recommend to execute a Competitive Intelligence Audit, which is a combination of the Strategic Audit and the Information Audit.