Battening down the hatches

Survey of corporate business information services based on in-depth interviews with leading information and knowledge managers. Key findings are:

1. Greater coordination and management of global corporate information management networks

2. Although information budget reductions in the light of the recession have been relatively modest so far — 50 per cent of respondents have experienced cuts of 10 per cent and upwards — most predict more substantial reductions in their 2009 budgets

3. The business climate is still rather uneven — banking and financial services are struggling whilst some other sectors, most notably corporate law, are generally busy

4. Great efforts to establish very tight cost control

5. Constant search for ways for Information Department to add more value to the business

6. Rolling back of desk-top deployment of data sources in some companies due to financial pressures and non-use; other companies continue to expand desk-top access to information products

7. Financial restrictions have affected service development capability and speed of response

8. Use of sophisticated metrics to track and assess costs and use for client feedback

9. Seventy-five per cent of respondents have already lost staff or expect to do so in 2009

10. Information discovery skills, that most traditional part of the Library and Information Service (LIS) professional's armoury, are increasingly being recognized as a key priority by senior information managers looking at their skill mix

11. Twenty per cent of companies committed to offshore operations are consolidating; 80 per cent have no immediate plans to follow this strategy but don't necessarily rule it out further into the future

12. Some sustained Knowledge Management (KM) initiatives ongoing in 50 per cent of respondent companies, albeit if sometimes of a `Guerrilla KM' flavour

13. Social technologies for corporate deployment — a third of respondents are believers, a third agnostics and a third atheists

14. Vendor management and relationships: respondents demand more creativity and understanding on charging levels and flexibility

15. Brokers' reports becoming unaffordable and therefore unavailable

16. Information risks such as password misuse, Intellectual Property (IP) and copyright breaches and licensing violations should be better understood and managed

17. BvD ousts Factiva in ranking of top three vendors

18. There's a continued commitment to user training albeit in terms of coaching and support rather than formal programmes

19. Strategic concerns focus on organizational management and financial issues above all else.