Aligning and Streamlining Enterprise Taxonomy at Harvard Business Publishing

Challenge

Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) business units support different audience markets, each with its own unique value proposition, priorities, and terminology. Content flowed across multiple systems, each with its own metadata and taxonomies. Business units often relied on mappings and manual processes to publish content. Making changes was resource intensive, which limited HBP’s ability to respond quickly to new opportunities. They had implemented a taxonomy management tool, but weren’t using it to its full potential.

Approach

Assessment and Roadmapping

Dovecot conducted an in-depth analysis of the current state of search, metadata, and taxonomy. After facilitating a series of workshops with key stakeholders from different business units, we proposed a roadmap for recommended improvements with prioritized needs and dependencies.

Taxonomy Development

Building upon our recommendations, we crafted a strategy to develop a new, holistic enterprise taxonomy. Allowing for flexibility in how each business unit consumed and displayed the terms was key to our strategy.

We created hierarchical subject, geography, and content type facets. To provide access to more granular terms and entities (companies, organizations, and even people’s names), we included lightly governed keywords.

System Integration

To accommodate this new robust, flexible, and all-encompassing taxonomy, we needed to better integrate all the systems that would consume it. We designed a new architecture that removed manual processes and multi-layered mappings to better support the flow of taxonomy from the upgraded taxonomy management system.

Governance

We designed a taxonomy governance framework that centralized ownership of strategy, technology, and documentation, while balancing input from each business unit. We asked subject matter experts and partner organizations such as Baker Library at Harvard Business School to provide ongoing input and crafted clear lines of communication so everyone felt heard and understood.

Solution

We helped HBP connect the dots between strategy, technology, and governance by shifting their view of their content ecosystem from a collection of siloed publishing entities to a single, intelligent network. We recognized the unique needs of each business unit and built flexibility and agility into the approach. As a result, HBP is now well positioned to respond quickly to new content challenges and opportunities. The publisher’s taxonomy is set up to grow and evolve along with their needs.

Robust and agile enterprise taxonomy
Streamlined technical architecture
New taxonomy, implemented across 6 different platforms
Retagged over 20,000 items through mappings and scripts