Survey Says Banks Lack Information Efficiency

Organizations operating in sectors that rely most heavily on enterprise information are among the worst at enabling access to internal content and utilizing it, according to a new study from content management provider Smartlogic and consumer and business analyst MindMetre Research.

Overall, the study found that information efficiency in every sector – including banking – is fundamentally unsatisfactory, with no industry scoring more than 50 percent – meaning that fewer than half the organizations surveyed rated their sector as capable across four categories of effectiveness. The total score for all sectors was 38 percent.

Banking placed in the bottom quarter of the survey with only 34 percent of respondents finding its efficiency to be satisfactory, putting it a mere 4 percent ahead of the lowest performing sector, media and publishing. High-tech & IT, aerospace, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, information & research, and property & construction were also in the lower half of the Index table.

Most of the sectors at the bottom part of the survey, such as banking, are highly reliant on unstructured internal information -- either producing very large pieces of complex content such as research, product development reports, market analysis and technical specifications, or generating huge numbers of smaller articles and information items that are continually being created such as news, comment, blogs, reviews, alerts, market updates, financial results and other announcements, the survey found.

The survey polled more than 2,000 senior managers from organizations across 20 sectors over the course of 2011.

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio