Improve information access and content findability with a taxonomy

More then ever, making information findable by the people who need it is a critical success factor in business. IT’s challenge is allowing users to navigate through enterprise systems so they can find the information they want. A taxonomy embedded into SharePoint’s information architecture will allow you to control how information is defined, searched, found and reported.

Our business process-driven taxonomy extends Microsoft SharePoint™ 2010 information architecture into enterprise applications for common content classification, metadata and taxonomy to improve business process workflow, search and navigation and business intelligence.

Organization’s business-owners need to maintain a consistent set of terms for categorizing their content so content consumers—including customers, partners, and employees—can find the information they need to solve business problems. Mapping the terminology of an organization without the involvement of end users is easier said than done, yet managing and maintaining a controlled vocabulary is a critical success factor in the effective use of SharePoint.

What is the business value of the SG&A Process Taxonomy  framework?

  • Creates a common language across your company
  • Promote interoperability across departments
  • Improve ability to share information
  • Support departments capital planning of  IT
  • Serves customers needs better, faster and more cost effectively

This approach focuses on major business areas and is more likely to succeed because the effort can be scaled,  limited to common functions or specific enterprise processes e.g. sales.  According to Microsoft, taxonomy includes content classes that provides the basic functionality for metadata management is used for classification, search and navigation by function or department.

SharePoint 2010 leverages taxonomies in a number of ways – through definitions, content types, the physical organizations of libraries and logical classification of collections.  A SharePoint taxonomy aligned to business terms will improve:

  • Content Indexing
  • Retrieval
  • enterprise content organization and navigation
  • the ability to quickly develop information architectures

Why a custom approach does not work;

In-house development of a custom, one-off taxonomy represents a business as usual approach,  typically resulting in continued failure to:

  • agree on terms and definitions
  • siloed data and servers impede the ability to share information across departments
  • fails to address  rapidly changing business requirements in a timely manner.

This approach typically results in:

  • decreased speed to market
  • business and IT rework
  • decreased productivity
  • missed opportunities for cross functional process enhancements.

SG&A Process Taxonomy registered through ICANN™

Our taxonomy can be used to capture vocabularies or organize business terms and associated information.

To find out more about extending search and findability with a taxonomy in your enterprise contact Seamus Walsh at 802-922-6943.

Optimizing People, Process and Technology®