Taxonomy Strategies serves diverse constituencies and has worked on projects in various industries. Our deep knowledge and experience with industry standards and all types of information—text, data, graphics, and other visual formats—makes us a natural partner for building data governance and risk compliance solutions. We understand technical and financial data exchange requirements and protocols so you can search, find, and share digital assets with your partners and customers.
For example, our analysts worked with Honeywell to assess the way automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) products were merchandised on their customer-facing website. We 1) conducted customer focus groups for key industrial segments including aerospace, healthcare, distribution, and logistics; 2) analyzed organic queries; 3) facilitated workshops to develop solution selling user scenarios; and 4) conducted open and closed card sorts to establish links between categories and scenarios. Based on these inputs we prepared a taxonomy that was refined and validated with the Honeywell team and ultimately implemented on their website. Our consultants helped transform the user experience from one based on inflexible hierarchical product categories to one focused on informing visitors about product categories and how they can be used in key industry segments.
At Medline Industries, one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of medical supplies, our consultants worked with their digital marketing group to assess the existing product classification and attributes used on the current website. This assessment included internal stakeholder focus groups, a web user survey, one-on-one online user research sessions, a quantitative and heuristic taxonomy assessment, an online query log analysis, and a comparison of key online competitors. Based on the results of this user research program, Taxonomy Strategies developed a new product catalog classification and taxonomy, and re-designed the product attribute model for collecting, categorizing and prioritizing product attributes. Our consultants demonstrated an effective methodology for implementing an enterprise-wide product classification and attribute model that consolidated products from different lines of business and implemented standardized values for common attributes like color, size, and material.
Taxonomy Strategies consultants are familiar with the Exploration and Production (E&P) lifecycle, Health Safety and Environment (HS&E) categories, as well as the types of material, equipment, and processes used in the oil and gas industry. Our consultants worked with Halliburton staff to consolidate multiple taxonomies developed for separate product lines. We helped Halliburton communities of practice organize detailed technical information in their intranet portals and helped to organize and present search results in categories and sub-categories. Customers and employees can now easily find Halliburton products and services regardless of what product line they’re in. For example, a field service engineer can find all information that is available about a piece of equipment before performing service on it. (See our Halliburton case study).
Taxonomy Strategies consultants have a strategy for building enterprise-wide taxonomies which consolidate specialized taxonomies from the different lines of business and business functions. At BHP Billiton, one of the world’s largest mining companies, our consultants worked with the application and information management team to plan BHP’s needs related to taxonomy and metadata creation and management. We helped BHP develop a plan that provided near-term benefits, as well as longer-term courses of action. We identified methods for automating content tagging with metadata to reduce the cost and increase the speed of metadata creation. We also identified the skills needed for this new responsibility and training needs for current staff. BHP implemented a taxonomy strategy that improved their information and knowledge management practices first within the Petroleum Division, then for BHP at large.