Justifying an Enterprise Taxonomy

The creation and management of an enterprise taxonomy can mean a significant investment in resources. It may mean hiring or training people with specialized skillsets, purchasing tools, doing development work to integrate toolsets, establishing and monitoring systems to track use and effectiveness, and more.

The key to selling it in within an organization is justifying the expense by identifying the external and internal uses and benefits. The work begins with an analysis of the business systems that can benefit from a consistent, centrally-managed taxonomy--not just content management systems, but also CRM systems, records management, intranets and more. In addition to internal systems, develop use cases for the user-facing features and benefits--improved navigation, filtered search functionality, search results, customization, and dynamic presentation of content. 

For more about how an enterprise taxonomy is used and how to determine the return on investment, check out our latest article, The Case for Enterprise Taxonomy.

Once an enterprise taxonomy has been created, it needs to be maintained and updated to reflect changing content and changing user needs. To learn more about maintaining a taxonomy, see our articles on taxonomy governance and how to establish a governance team.