I recall reading an Educause article on a survey they conducted in higher education institutes about their shift in priorities and roles of key staff. It seemed to me they were aware of the need for better information. The article was from 2007 and titled, Current Issues Report, 2007.
One of the top ten issues was Administrative, ERP and Information Systems. It seemed CIOs were concerned about honing the right information.
In short, I think management is in need of good information for decision making. Hopefully, movements like evolving methods for learning analytics will serve that need.