How Can A Taxonomy Help With Data And Information Management?

Many businesses possess vast amounts of data and managing large repositories of structured and unstructured information can certainly be difficult. Some companies are looking to AI as a solution to this issue. However, this approach can be costly, and also requires data to be well-organised.

For businesses with significant amounts of disorganised data, a more effective solution is taxonomy-based software.

What Is A Taxonomy?

In relation to data management, a taxonomy is a set of terms that are used to describe data, as well as map and categorise it. Without a taxonomy, the search function of any system will not be fully effective. This will usually mean increased time spent on trying to locate relevant data. Taxonomies address this by mapping the relationship between different terms, concepts and processes, and creating a system that categorises data in a logical, consistent way.

Avoid Ambiguity With A Taxonomy

A significant challenge with data management is ambiguity, where a term might have multiple meanings. A taxonomy helps with contextual understanding, which is instrumental in removing ambiguity. A good quality data management taxonomy takes into account synonyms, aliases, abbreviations, acronyms, and other sources of ambiguity to ensure that data is always categorised in the correct way, regardless of how it is presented.

Taxonomies also take into account the relationship between things. For example, if something is tagged as being in London, a good taxonomy will recognise that this is also in England, the UK, and Europe, and will display the item for searches for any of these phrases. Similarly, an even higher quality data classification taxonomy will recognise that there are multiple places called London and will differentiate between these.

How Would A Taxonomy Benefit Me?

A taxonomy allows for a full and thorough review of your data, which makes it much simpler to find duplicates and data that isn’t needed. This is helpful for data cleansing. In turn, you will more easily be able to search your data and find relevant and useful results. This ultimately saves the business time and can be a real aid to efficiency.

Flare Solutions specialises in a taxonomy-based approach to data management for the energy industry. We have a wealth of experience in this area and have worked with some of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world to develop a data management taxonomy for their business. If you need a cost-effective solution to your data management, contact us today.