Information is hard to find

Finding information is time consuming because it is held in so many different, usually undocumented, locations.

Information is easy to find

Information is all stored in a single place. Includes Google-style searching across all your information and attached files.

Person unavailable = information unavailable

If the person responsible for a silo of information is unavailable, their information becomes unavailable.

Person unavailable = information available

Information is available when the owner or custodian is unavailable.

Information is duplicated

Inevitably there will be multiple, independent copies of information. It is highly unlikely that the duplicated information will be synchronised and therefore these copies are unreliable. But everyone assumes that the information is correct.

No duplication of information

With information stored in a single place there is no need for duplication.

Information. What information?

Where there are silos of information people are frequently unaware of their existence. This leads to duplication of effort and decisions being made without the benefit of the full facts.

All available information is visible

It is clearly visible to any Cimera user exactly what information is available within the organisation.

Information is hard to relate

There are many logical relationships between items of information. It is possible to manually record these relationships but as the information is managed independently it is hard to ensure that they are kept up to date.

Information is easy to relate

Relationships can be formed between items stored in Cimera. This includes the information held in third-party tools.

No big picture

With disparate information it is extremely time-consuming to gather the information required to see a complete picture. And if you can’t see it, you can’t manage it.

Manage the big picture

Querying and reporting across the entire organisation is possible. Information relationships enable powerful drill-down.

Disparate information is less accessible

Information that is littered throughout the organisation is not easily made available remotely, for example, across the Internet.

All of the information stored in Cimera can be accessed remotely across the Internet.

Hard to secure, hard to audit, hard to manage

The nature of the information stores (e.g. Word, Excel etc.) makes it very hard to secure the data against corruption. There is no proper audit trail of any changes and each store must be backed up independently.

Easy to secure, easy to audit, easy to manage

Cimera offers ownership and role-based security that operate down to field level. All actions are recorded, and a single repository means a single point to back up and restore.

Poor process adherence

Word processors and spreadsheets are very flexible. Unfortunately this means that any data can be entered, not just the expected data. It is difficult to insist that mandatory information is captured at certain states in the lifecycle or to prevent people from entering invalid data or updating data that should be fixed.

Encourages process adherence

Cimera can ensure that only valid information is entered. It can highlight undesirable (but valid) information (e.g. out of normal range). It can also validate across fields, ensure that mandatory information is completed, and prevent selected information from being changed at certain points in the lifecycle.