Corporate taxonomy is the

hierarchical classification Hierarchical classification is a system of grouping things according to a hierarchy. In the field of machine learning, hierarchical classification is sometimes referred to as instance space decomposition, which splits a complete multi-class pro ...

of entities of interest of an enterprise, organization or administration, used to classify documents, digital assets and other information. Taxonomies can cover virtually any type of physical or conceptual entities (products, processes, knowledge fields, human groups, etc.) at any level of

granularity Granularity (also called graininess), the condition of existing in granules or grains, refers to the extent to which a material or system is composed of distinguishable pieces. It can either refer to the extent to which a larger entity is sub ...

. Corporate taxonomies are increasingly used in

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...

(particularly

content management Content management (CM) is a set of processes and technologies that supports the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. When stored and accessed via computers, this information may be more specifically referre ...

and

knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making ...

systems), as a way to promote

discoverability Discoverability is the degree to which something, especially a piece of content or information, can be found in a search of a file, database, or other information system. Discoverability is a concern in library and information science, many aspects ...

and allow instant access to the right information within exponentially growing volumes of data in

learning organizations In business management, a learning organization is a company that facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself.Pedler, M., Burgogyne, J. and Boydell, T. 1997. ''The Learning Company: A strategy for sustainable develop ...

. Relatively simple systems based on semantic networks and taxonomies proved to be a serious competitor to heavy data mining systems and behavior analysis software in contextual filtering applications used for routing customer requests, "pushing" content on a Web site or delivering product advertising in a targeted and pertinent way. A powerful approach to map and retrieve

unstructured data Unstructured data (or unstructured information) is information that either does not have a pre-defined data model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner. Unstructured information is typically text-heavy, but may contain data such as dates, num ...

, taxonomies allow efficient solutions in the management of corporate knowledge, in particular in complex organizational models for

workflows A workflow consists of an orchestrated and repeatable pattern of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a sequence of ...

human resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include ...

customer relations Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information. CRM systems compile data from a ra ...

. As an extension of traditional

thesauri A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea: Synonym dictionar ...

and classifications used in a company, a corporate taxonomy is usually the fruit of a large harmonization effort involving most departments of the organization. It is often developed, deployed and fine tuned over the years, while setting up

systems, in order to assure the survival and good use of valuable corporate know-how. Enterprises have varying interest in the usage of taxonomies, from the usual enterprise information searches to the direct business benefits of taxonomies benefiting quicker and more accurate searches for the merchandise or the services of e-commerce or e-library sites. Such organisations may need to build large and complex vocabularies and deal with information assets that are largely in the public domain. Consequently, they are looking to shortcut their metadata schema development and avoid reinventing the wheel. Such shortcuts include the licensing of ready-built taxonomies and vocabularies with which to enhance their search results quickly.

References

Information intelligence: Content classification and enterprise taxonomy practice
Delphi Group. 2004. Last checked 29 January 2016. This whitepaper defines taxonomy and classification within an enterprise information architecture, analyzes trends in taxonomy software applications, and provides examples of approaches to using this technology to solve business problems.

External links

Most of the items selected are written for a general business audience, or are a basic primer on the particular topic.
Taxonomy Warehouse - Listing of most taxonomies that are available
Resource for finding taxonomies on a variety of topics
WAND Taxonomies
Source for pre-built corporate taxonomies covering many different industry and business segments.
Eugene Stakhov/ARMA International
Object-oriented taxonomy approach {{Portal bar, Companies Information technology management