Do you have the information you need to do your job? Do you have what you need to make critical decisions?

IBM asked these questions of business leaders in a business analytics and optimization study published in April 2009. One-half said they didn’t have the information required to do their jobs. One-third reported that they frequently lacked the information needed to make critical decisions.

IBM defines analytics as “the use of information to find patterns, identify new possibilities, create scenarios, make predictions, and prescribe actions.” Optimization is “a process that entails analyzing opportunities and constraints and then driving decisions about them deep into the organization.”

In August, IBM surveyed nearly 400 business leaders worldwide about how they use information and apply business intelligence. It compared top performers—top quintile based on self-reported performance relative to their peers—and lower performers in the bottom two quintiles. Twice as many top performers as lower performers had mastered three basic characteristics of information management:

• Aware. They were able to gather and use information from inside and outside the enterprise.
• Precise. They could sort through and extract the most relevant aspects of information.
• Linked. They were able to align information with business objectives and across functions.

Organizations that integrate the Baldrige model also master these basics. They have processes for selecting, collecting, aligning, and integrating data and information, and they have processes for using that data and information to do their jobs and make critical decisions. Management by fact is a Baldrige core value evident in the performance measurement systems of Baldrige Award recipients.

Such systems also differentiated high performers from low performers in the IBM survey. “Top performers took a sophisticated approach to governing organizational information three times more often” than low performers. As IBM concluded, “The most sophisticated had strong management systems in place.”

Your organization can develop a strong, world-class management system by integrating the Baldrige model. To read the report in the IBM survey, click here (pdf). To find out more about performance measurement and integrating the Baldrige model, check out:

• Creating a Balanced Scorecard
• 10 Critical Questions: Data, Information, & Knowledge
• Transforming Measurement
• 10 Questions to Ask about Everything You Do
• How to Integrate Baldrige
• 10 Steps to World Class

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