In an effort to simplify their IT architectures and optimize systems companywide, many businesses are standardizing on a single content-management platform for document management, Web-content management, imaging, intranet publishing, and E-mail management.

Such a move requires that companies carefully consider the ways in which they organize information and how employees use documents. Without an accurate picture of where documents are located, users will have trouble finding what they're looking for -- and businesses run the risk of re-creating existing information, losing content, and wasting time, defeating the purpose of enterprise content management.

Business information exists in many forms. Along with conventional structured data from databases, huge volumes of unstructured information reside in static documents such as Microsoft Office files, PDF files, presentations, graphics, and video. Business users have no shortage of information available to them, but the data they need to do their jobs can be difficult, time consuming, and expensive to find. Some studies suggest that the process consumes up to a third of the workday.

Documents often are stored on a networked server or file system and are typically organized within a hierarchical folder system. Although this lets employees find and store information by browsing through folders, it doesn't help people who don't know the content of the documents stored in the system.

This is where a taxonomy tool can really help. A taxonomy classifies information (and its associated "metadata" -- data that further describes the information) according to a logical system. The resulting catalog may be imported into or referenced by other applications. Using a taxonomy with an enterprise content-management tool can reduce the amount of time users spend looking for data and increase the return on such an investment.

A typical collection of unstructured documents includes data on hundreds or thousands of subjects, created by many people and written for a variety of audiences. Without a defined taxonomy, if an employee searches for a "sales presentation," he or she might get an unacceptably large set of results, including presentations to customers, and sales presentations by suppliers and vendors. A taxonomy lets the same user search for "sales presentation" within a specific category, such as Customer X or Suppliers, returning a smaller and more relevant set of results.

Taxonomy-creation tools scan a group of documents and suggest logical categories based on the content or criteria defined by the company. These tools often feature the ability to match patterns of words, specify or exclude documents based on complex business rules, and extract common themes that occur across a company's data.

Taxonomy tools differ in how they collect and organize information, their flexibility, and the ways in which they integrate with a company's IT environment. Most taxonomy tools include a search-and-retrieve component, and many let the taxonomy engine integrate with a custom application or user interface.