Nine out of 10 organisations will fail in the first year unless they approach information management in a coordinated, enterprise manner, says industry analyst Gartner.

In order to survive, organisations must exploit their information assets and address issues surrounding data overload to achieve their efficiency, transparency and differentiation objectives, the analyst firm said.

"For too long IT professionals have focused on technology and not enough on information," said David Newman, research vice president at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo.

"The business expects to have the right information at the right time to get the job done. It also expects information to be accurate and consistent."

According to Gartner, a lack of information governance affects the bottom line.

"For example, companies in North America have lost more than $600bn in revenue due to poor quality data," Newman said.

"A telecom provider in the UK instilled data-quality awareness into its culture and improved revenue by reducing loss due to inaccurate billing from more than 15 per cent to less than one per cent."

Gartner also said that compliance with regulatory initiatives such as SOX or Basel II were straining IT’s limited resources, impacting the delivery of new development or system enhancements.

Newman said that senior management expects that adequate controls and defined accountabilities are in place to assure compliance and reduce risk.

"That’s why information governance is top-of-mind among any of our clients today," he said.

According to Gartner, most organisations manage information in different silos, separated by system or department.

"The result is a lack of consistency, transparency and quality of information assets across the organisation," the company said.

"Very few have a coordinated strategy or plan that seeks to reduce the cost, complexity and integration difficulties of sharing and exchanging information assets."

Gartner said it had established a framework for managing information as a corporate asset, called Enterprise Information Management (EIM).

The system consists of seven essential building blocks, with information governance as just one of them.