How to Utilize Enterprise Information

Architecture to Enable Enterprise

Information Integration
A White Paper Prepared for Factiva, a Dow Jones and Reuters Company
By Duncan Scott and Michael Pecnik
September, 2003
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Contents
Contents....................................................................................................................................................................................................2
1. Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................................................................3
2. Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................................................................3
3. Challenges in Information Management.................................................................................................................................................4
Business Challenges ..........................................................................................................................................................................5
User Challenges ................................................................................................................................................................................6
IT Challenges.....................................................................................................................................................................................6
4. Enterprise Information Architecture Overview.........................................................................................................................................6
5. Factivas Roadmap to Enterprise Information Integration ........................................................................................................................6
5.1. Initial Benchmarking.......................................................................................................................................................................7
5.2. Information Audit ...........................................................................................................................................................................7
5.2.1. Workflow Analysis...................................................................................................................................................................7
5.2.2. User Properties ........................................................................................................................................................................8
5.2.3. Applications ............................................................................................................................................................................8
5.2.4. Participants .............................................................................................................................................................................8
5.3. Workflow Audit..............................................................................................................................................................................8
5.3.1. Target Group...........................................................................................................................................................................8
5.4. Content Categorization..................................................................................................................................................................8
5.5. Enterprise Information Architecture Recommendation ....................................................................................................................9
5.5.1. Planning..................................................................................................................................................................................9
5.5.2. Implementation.......................................................................................................................................................................9
5.5.3. Initial Rollout ...........................................................................................................................................................................9
5.5.4. Incremental Rollouts................................................................................................................................................................9
5.6. Final Benchmarking ......................................................................................................................................................................10
6. Business Benefits, Measuring Return on Investment (ROI).....................................................................................................................10
7. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................................................................10
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1. Executive Summary
This paper provides an overview of Enterprise Information
Architecture (EIA) fundamentals. Our goal is to help Chief
Information Officers (CIOs) and other managers responsible for
corporate Knowledge Management (KM) initiatives understand
how EIA and Enterprise Information Integration (EII) create efficient
information management opportunities that were previously
unattainable in KM, despite profuse promises and expensive
investments in new technologies.
Factiva has been a pioneer in the field of EIA research and
development for more than 20 years, building information systems
that leverage relationships between people and content to deliver
relevant information. Factivas in-house development of a global
portal has provided our staff with real-world experience designing a
system that efficiently and effectively processes more than 140,000
documents from over 500 different systems on a daily basis. Factiva
has developed a vendor-neutral general taxonomy based upon a
hierarchical categorization system that can be used to support the
customized needs of individual companies regardless of industry.
The majority of the Global 4000 currently utilizes this taxonomy. The
high-level roadmap to achieving a successful EIA/EII solution
reviewed in this paper is the outcome of expertise gathered through
years of effort addressing KM initiatives at large and small
companies in a variety of industries.
We begin by defining EIA and EII and their objectives and benefits.
Next, we review Factivas approach to EII and the proprietary
methodology that allows us to help companies leverage their
existing infrastructures and fit them into new frameworks that
define how information assets are managed to achieve core
business objectives. More specifically, we address some of the key
prerequisites of EII; analysis of directories and applications;
consistent categorization and classification of information;
taxonomies; and workflows. These are the critical details that must
be carefully executed to integrate diverse stores of content and
technologies to create an information clearinghouse that truly
enables organizations to reduce costs and time-to-market for
implementing business processes that produce tangible efficiency
gains for the workforce.
2. Introduction
A century ago a customer at a store might ask the clerk to buy on
credit. This method of obtaining credit was inconvenient for both
the consumer and the shop owner. Customers were required to
maintain individual credit accounts with vendors, and vendors had
to manage accounts with many individuals. The advent of the
credit card changed all that. Rather than each individual having a
direct relationship and debt allowance with each vendor, each indi-
vidual carries a credit card that identifies the debtor to the vendor
and provides user profile information (such as a spending limit).
Today, when you buy something from a new vendor, rather than
filling out a form to establish a line of credit, all you do is present
your card, and the purchase is complete. By reducing the number of
relationships, the credit card saves money and time and increases
convenience for all involved.
1
Business executives today often find managing their information
assets is a lot like operating in a world without credit cards. Instead
of a streamlined relationship with one account management tool,
they are struggling to juggle multiple applications, tools, databases,
and corporate KM initiatives. Companies have invested millions in
technology, installing complex networks and expensive applications,
only to discover their investments are not efficiently utilized in
day-to-day operations, or, worse yet, are circumvented whenever
possible by the very employees these systems were designed to
benefit, due to lack of skill, the time it takes to get information from
a system or application, or lack of awareness that the knowledge
they are seeking is even available. It has been estimated that an
enterprise with 1,000 knowledge workers loses a minimum of
$6 million a year in time spent searching and not finding the
information needed for knowledge workers to pursue their jobs.
2
Companies that remain competitive in a challenging business
environment recognize that managing and exploiting knowledge
through technology is a critical success factor. Today, with marginal
improvements in hardware speed and functionality and fewer
dollars being invested in products, the efficient management of
knowledge in an enterprise is a requirement for profitable
business operations.
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To address revenues lost through poor access to information, many
companies have invested in some type of KM initiative. Typically,
theyve purchased standalone KM applications within a particular
department or implemented a sophisticated search engine or Web
portal. None of these solutions, however, deliver the promised
returns because the scope of delivery is either too limited,
applicable only to a narrow slice of workers and therefore not
reusable, or only reusable with a great deal of time and effort; or
because the scope is too broad, delivering too much information or
information that is not relevant to a specific workers need (business
process or activity) at that time. Companies need a strategy to max-
imize the value of their knowledge investments.
EIA (Enterprise Information Architecture) can be defined as all
components involved with providing any kind of information to a
multitude of end users. Components can be either hardware or
software. Its analogous to an orchestra - different components
(instruments) involved in providing information (music) to end users
(audience).
EIA offers a solution to the failures and limitations of the traditional
KM approaches. Rather than recommending the implementation
of a new system application to solve the problem, it proposes to
leverage the existing infrastructure and applications, tying them into
a new framework. In the case where there are areas with gaps, then
smaller software applications can be added to complement whats
already in place. In focusing on integration, EIA makes use of the
same paradigm that has successfully achieved a new level of
functionality in network engineering. Just as organizations have
consolidated networks, hardware, and applications by putting
frameworks or enterprise architectures into place, they will as a next
step have to consolidate their information assets and deliver
KM to diverse user groups through a common framework, in effect
creating an enterprise knowledge network. This framework is EIA.
The fundamental goal of an EIA is to deliver EII.
EII (Enterprise Information Integration) EII can be defined as
what is done to organize the information so that it integrates all
types of information housed in the architecture. Whereas EIA can
be likened to an orchestra, EII is analogous to a conductor. A
conductor integrates all the components (instruments) so that music
can be played. EII integrates all the information in the EIA to enable
users to be more productive in use of the information.
EII offers the following benefits:
Increased productivity for all users who will need filtered,
targeted, and relevant content available when executing
automated business processes
Reduced costs of managing content and information by
eliminating duplicate information, correcting inconsistencies, and
reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) of information
Elimination of revenue lost through time wasted by highly paid
knowledge workers searching for information
Increased revenues as sales people are more aware of critical
sales support information (for example: best practices, similar
deals in other territories, support issues, etc.)
Elimination of wasteful spending by improving the value of
existing system
Streamlined shopping list for new technology based on clearly
defined needs and demonstrated benchmarks
Scalable infrastructure with reduced deployment, training and
maintenance costs for any new applications, as well as reduced
time-to-market
3. Challenges in Information
Management
The biggest challenge today is the same simple one as it has
always been: increase sales while controlling costs.
Infrastructure such as standalone KM applications, centralized
Knowledge Management Systems (KMS), and sophisticated search
engines and Web portals have all enhanced information delivery to
workers, but they have not delivered productivity and cost savings.
Each of these approaches has flaws.
Standalone KM applications are problematic because the
information they contain may not be accessible to all of the
workers who could use the information, and, if access to the system
is available to all workers, the information may not be delivered to
a knowledge worker in another part of the organization in an
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appropriate format or context. Hence, time is wasted sifting
through irrelevant data to find the valuable information that can be
cut and pasted into the relevant format.
Its not practical to create a single, centralized KMS given the
dynamic nature of the enterprise environment and the speed with
which the needs of workers must be met. A central KMS would
have difficulty meeting the diverse business needs of individual
departments and result in unacceptable compromises. A companys
e-mail archives, file drawers, department servers and other
scattered media often are inaccessible to these centralized systems.
3
The initial goals of portal development were very fundamental and
sought to provide a simplified user interface that would facilitate
access to information and applications. This technical architecture
targeted unified directories that would enable single-sign-on (SSO)
to multiple applications and automated delivery of information that
a user has subscribed to or had been pre-determined based on a
users directory attributes. This approach yielded a tangible user
experience improvement but failed in its attempt to deliver radical
productivity gains, due to issues of interoperability, customization
needs, and other problems related to a lack of standardization. A
business that limits its EII strategy to deploying a portal without
addressing the fundamental architecture of the contributing
applications creates a better way to access applications and
information but provides little productivity gains beyond that.
Search engines also have drawbacks that diminish
productivity, including:
Information overload or irrelevant content: A search may
return too much irrelevant information or information
that is not targeted toward the knowledge workers
immediate problem. This can happen because workers,
though well-educated and highly skilled, are neither
journalists nor librarians. Even the brightest may not know
how to ask the right questions or figure out how the
information returned is ordered. The search engine may
not have access to the data or may lack the capability to
respond accurately to the workers questions or to allow
enough feedback so the worker can appropriately narrow
the context of the query.
Inaccurate or missing information: Search engines may
not return all available information. Security rules and
firewalls can prevent access to content repositories or
servers. Information may be stored in formats that are
not read or accessed by search engine crawlers.
Examples of such files typically include non-text files,
such as rich media files, including video and audio files,
as well as any data stored in relational databases (client
records, financial data, etc.). The same data entered
into different applications at different times by different
people may contradict itself, due to input errors or
different methods of extrapolation. Information may be
stored on laptops, in hard copy or other media
unattached to the network, or it may not be properly
indexed and therefore not available to be searched.
To achieve successful EII, numerous challenges in information
management must be addressed from the business, user, and
Information Technology (IT) perspectives, including:
Business Challenges
The main challenges are to maintain cost efficiencies while
increasing revenue. Specific challenges include:
Make employees proactive, not reactive, by providing
them with access to the right information at the right
time so they can make intelligent business decisions that
positively impact the bottom line
Leverage investments and maximize utilization of existing
systems, such as Customer Relationship Management
4
(CRM) system(s), portals, Human Resource Management
Systems
5
(HRMS), and financial systems
Enhance consistency and quality of information/data
entered into systems so that employees use and archive
correct information
Reduce new employee training costs
User Challenges
The main challenge is to reduce time and increase productivity,
specifically:
Shift time spent from procedural tasks to value-
creating tasks
Reduce time involved in prolific manual copy-and-paste
Reduce number of procedures and time it takes to
provide 360-degree view of entities
IT Challenges
The main challenge is to effectively use technology to maximize
revenue and improve productivity, as detailed below:
Enhance integration between existing systems thus
providing transparent access to all data sources, making
employees more productive
Establish transparent and relevant connection of users to
information
Dynamically update users needs based upon continuously
updated directory information
Position back office systems as back office systems, allow-
ing users to gain access and utilize those systems through
intuitive user interfaces
Implement a portable architecture that facilitates and
supports ever changing worker interfaces
Historically, companies have addressed these challenges by purchas-
ing and customizing new applications that are added to the infra-
structure to solve a specific problem (for example, a sales portal).
Successes have been somewhat limited due to employee adoption,
cost of data integration and maintenance, and ultimately because
they are not the one-stop shop that they are expected to be. At the
same time, the infrastructure became more complex and discon-
nected as more relationships were created between information,
applications and users, hence making any new IT initiative in the
future more costly and complex, as more data and relationships
have to be supported, migrated and connected.
Today, companies are searching for decision driving intelligence.
However, without beginning with the right Enterprise Information
Architecture, this can be hard to achieve.
4. Enterprise Information
Architecture Overview
Factiva defines EIA in its simplest form as a three-tier architecture -
infrastructure, processing and presentation:
Tier 1 - (Infrastructure) - Consists of back-office applications,
information repositories and directories that contain relevant
information about the users
Tier 2 - (Processing) - Contains the brains of the architecture
which includes the post-processing components for
supplementing the intelligence of the information and utilizes
the user profile to provide a match to users information
needs. The area of post-processing content is a key area where
categorization, entity extraction, common key creation, text
mining and the dynamic relationships between users and
information is created
Tier 3 - (Presentation) - Contains the presentation and workflow
area that is designed to support the delivery demands of the
current paradigm, and supports future workflows
5. Factivas Roadmap to Enterprise
Information Integration
Enterprise Information Integration is the key deliverable that is
gained from EIA. Before an EIA can be implemented, an inventory
of all information, applications, user profiles and workflows must be
captured and documented. Once we understand user workflows,
and what applications and information they use with them
regardless of what technologies are in place we can apply best
practices. This methodology maps to a four-step approach to build-
ing an EIA:
Step 1 - Take Inventory: Inventory all Tier 1 components
and get a high-level understanding of workflows. Quantify the
scope of the initiative so that the appropriate components are
reviewed
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Step 2 - Prototype and Test: Ideal workflows are
prototyped. Evaluate the capabilities of the Tier 1 components for
fit and make best of breed component recommendations
that will lead to improved productivity in the workflow. Make
recommendations on how to maximize the contribution of
existing components that will remain part of the EIA. A
benchmarking process will list all the tangible comparisons
between existing and recommended workflows and assess
intangible gains that might not be empirically measurable
Step 3 - System Design Phase: Capture all of the functional
and technical requirements. Ensure the architecture works within
the constraints of the organizations IT standards (including
security) and that it will be maintainable and scalable.
Develop project plans and budgeting for the implementation
Step 4 - Planning and Deployment: New applications must be
developed and new workflows must be implemented. The archi-
tecture must also be fully supported and maintained. Other tasks
associated with deployment include documenting new business
processes, building taxonomies, training staff, implementing
change management and ensuring successful adoption
Some key tasks involved in developing an EIA are as follows:
1. Initial Benchmarking
2. Information Audit
3. Workflow Audit
4. Content Categorization
5. Deployment of EIA
6. Final Benchmarking
5.1. Initial Benchmarking
In order to establish a roadmap of the EII initiative for a specific
organization, it is important to analyze the status quo and collect
honest feedback from knowledge workers on how effectively
existing systems and available information support their job
responsibilities. (Honest feedback is effectively and anonymously
achieved through use of an independent interviewer). This
information will be compared to managements perceived
effectiveness of the infrastructure and can potentially highlight
areas for more in-depth focus. The end result of this phase will be a
benchmark study, which will be used at the completion of the
initiative to measure improvements and success in gained
productivity, morale and hard dollars.
The interviewing process is critical in creating an accurate, high-level
understanding of workflows. This understanding aids in designing a
project scope that is attainable. It is important to define a focus for
all projects in order to deliver quality. After the initial benchmarking,
the decision is made whether to alter initiatives .
5.2. Information Audit
An Information Audit (IA) follows initial benchmarking. The IA
creates a baseline for existing external and internal content and
associated technologies - search, categorization, taxonomy,
Document Management System (DMS), Content Management
System
6
(CMS), portal, etc. Benefits of this inventory process include
the ability to:
understand how information is utilized its value and ongoing
costs of information assets including applications
identify redundancies and inefficiencies
make future deployments faster and cheaper due to
easier maintenance and re-use of existing infrastructure
5.2.1. Workflow Analysis
To gain a complete understanding of the existing type of
information flows and how information is used across the
organization, interviews, workshops, surveys and document reviews
are used to assess key dimensions of the information
environment, focusing on What, Who, How and Why. Basic
questions include:
What type of content exists? What is the quality,
consistency, cost and value?
Who uses the applications and how are the
relationships connected?
How is the information used and is it creating
maximum productivity?
Why is this information used, and what business value
is being recognized?
What is the relationship and flow of information to related
complimentary information?
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5.2.2. User Properties
User profiles providing information about a users position, function,
geography and interests (whether explicitly selected by the user or
obtained implicitly). These profiles are tools used to determine the
relevant directory attributes that drive information for that user.
Properties can also be assigned to the user to make search functions
more meaningful and more applicable to the users work context.
5.2.3. Applications
We use interviews, surveys, document reviews, and use process
analysis to assess existing applications for: application use, flow,
tasks and goals.
5.2.4. Participants
To ensure buy-in and success, the following groups are involved:
IT
Information professional/library
Sales and Marketing
Operations
Finance
5.3. Workflow Audit
Ideally, workflow consists of the procedures by which information in
its various formats and tasks are routed (distributed and retrieved)
within and outside a company in order to accomplish a business
objective. Because workflow is driven by business needs, it is ideally
based on predefined business rules and processes. The reality is that
workflow often does not follow established procedures or rules and
therefore, does not work for the person completing the specific
task. The goal of EIA/EII is to streamline the workflow so that
business objectives can be clearly defined and their related tasks
performed expeditiously. During the workflow audit, management
must identify the ideal workflow (as well as the perceived one) and
compare these to the actual workflow as employees get their work
done. A variety of assessment methods can yield an accurate, three-
dimensional view of workflow; the most important method is the
interview.
5.3.1. Target Group
Ultimately, success depends on user adoption. In order to provide
users with effective workflow applications, it is important to
understand existing user behavior, ideas and complaints qualified by
the source e.g. management, top performers and other perform-
ers. While usage data is objective, it can provide the wrong infor-
mation unless it is backed up by interviews (for example, some
applications might have high usage because theyre slow or require
many steps, while others have low usage because nobody uses
them). Other applications might have low usage because they are
extremely effective, or because nobody knows they exist or how to
use them. The best way to understand user behavior, therefore, is
by interviewing management, top performers and poor performers
to identify best practices and areas for improvement. Because of the
sensitivity of the subject matter, its critical that the interviews are
performed by an independent party who can ensure the anonymity
necessary for high-quality feedback.
5.4. Content Categorization
The EIA/EII solution works because it makes technology more
responsive to human needs. Just as humans search for information
in a variety of ways, a properly implemented EIA utilizes multiple
processes for accessing information:
Keyword search
Exploration of a taxonomy (or hierarchical organization),
such as a tree or other structural navigational aid
Navigating or toggling between a keyword search and a
content hierarchy
Transparent searches (results listed without the user having
to enter a search; the search runs in the background and
is based on the context of the users workflow)
Mapping of data keys between multiple sources using
discovery to normalize the content and form relationships
No matter what access method is used, the efficacy of each depends
upon document profiling utilizing appropriate content
categorization. Content categorization involves tagging articles and
other media to determine useful concepts or other attributes, such
as corporate names, dates, places or the names of individuals.
Natural language processing is then used to search, summarize, cat-
egorize, mine and display content.
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To be useful, content and user profiles must relate to each other.
Relationships are identified via logical links. For example, links
among user profiles can lead to a grouping of experts familiar with
a specific project. Alternatively, these links can be displayed as a list
or they can map to a taxonomy, enabling a navigation process. A
more sophisticated exploitation of this system can supply a more
refined context for the information, for example, certain articles
are accessed primarily by physicians while another set is more
appropriate for consumers of health care services.
5.5. Enterprise Information Architecture
Recommendation
The information that has been collected in the first phases of the
project will now be used to recommend an EIA. Conceptually, the
EIA needs to consist of the following components:
An inventory of information assets, plus description of
where they reside and how they can be accessed
Documentation of workflows that need to be supported
Taxonomy that will be applied across all information
User information and SSO functionality
Content categorization methods
Naming conventions
Formatting standards (for example, XML)
Functional requirements for workflow applications
Technical requirements for implementation
In order to build the EIA, a project needs to be defined. It will most
likely be tied to a specific initiative such as the implementation of a
sales portal, consisting of the following phases:
Planning
Implementation
Initial rollout
Ongoing rollout to other applications
During the planning phase, we also consider scalability of the
architecture, all security concerns and the support and
maintenance model.
5.5.1. Planning
During the planning phase well define the technical and functional
requirements for EIA/EII. In addition to that well need a project plan
that identifies milestones, estimated costs, resources, components
and tasks.
5.5.2. Implementation
Based on the requirements set out, the initial infrastructure
(hardware, software, and taxonomy) will leverage the existing
infrastructure, such as SSO and user directories. Other components
might have to be introduced to deliver the full functionality of the
architecture. The key focus of this phase is integrating all of these
systems according to the EIA that has been defined.
5.5.3. Initial Rollout
In order to maximize its effectiveness and usefulness, EIA needs to
be implemented corporate-wide; however, organizations might
want to focus initially on a department where the highest return on
investment can be achieved before rolling it out across the
enterprise. By tying the strategic initiative to a business initiative,
organizations take an approach of practical deployment and are
able to get funding from the departments business champions. For
example, the EIA could initially be rolled out as part of the launch of
a sales portal.
5.5.4. Incremental Rollouts
Once the initial project has been completed and the EIA put into
place, subsequent projects will be defined as part of other business
initiatives. These projects will leverage EIA to allow the organization
to reduce deployment time and costs, since some components have
already been integrated into the EIA thereby reducing the number
of components to complete the new project.
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5.6. Final Benchmarking
After the initial EIA is deployed, we need to measure how well it has
met business objectives. During the final benchmarking task, we
identify where progress has been made and what next steps need
to be taken. Using metrics discussed in Section 6 below, we
calculate the ROI.
6. Business Benefits, Measuring
Return on Investment (ROI)
To measure the ROI of a project, we need to take into account both
qualitative and quantitative returns.
Quantitative benefits:
Reduced costs through eliminating duplicate information,
consolidating information assets, and achieving economies
of scale
Reduced costs and time frames for new projects that can leverage
the EIA framework
Ease of integration for future applications (this reduces the
costs of future IT projects)
Reduced costs associated with changing core applications
(obtained through a review of IT budgets)
Training
Qualitative benefits:
Increased productivity because of reduced time spent on
copying/pasting information, looking for information and availability of
information within context
Increased abilities to make effective decisions due to targeted
access to critical information
Increased productivity due to portability and the ability to
deliver to multiple targeted devices (for example, to a desktop
PC via a browser, to a PDA with a mini-browser, to a frame within
a portal application, to a Blackberry) without changing the
underlying systems
Ability to implement content categorization without touching
the core application, thereby maintaining a standard product as
opposed to a custom one, which increases productivity and thus
reduces implementation and ongoing maintenance/support costs
Allows you to deploy best functions without being bound
to inferior functionality that comes with core applications
Business Process Management (BPM)
Ability to build consistent and usable user interfaces
7. Conclusion
Throughout this White Paper, we have presented you with two
important points :
1.) Enterprise Information Integration is a key goal that can
be achieved as the result of deploying an Enterprise
Information Architecture.
2.) A solid Enterprise Information Architecture is critical to
the success of enterprises today. Critical because millions
of dollars are lost each year by having cumbersome
systems that produce silo objectives and dont OPTIMIZE
the value of a platform that allows for flexible integration.
There is a way to integrate systems to get the kind of
information that increases productivity, reduces costs and
maximizes revenue.
Factiva is one of the few companies positioned to act as a trusted
advisor in deploying systems that support the EIA/EII model.
We have decades of practical experience building information
systems based on the true relationship between people, information
and related information, and understand how information systems
and editorial enrichment work together to formulate an end-to-end
system. Our expertise in content aggregation, content
normalization, editorial workflows, user processes, taxonomy
development and user interfaces are validated by numerous industry
awards.
Moreover, because Factiva is vendor-agnostic, we have no agenda
that requires us to continue providing legacy support for systems
that dont deliver value. Factiva can help you reduce the cost of
customizing applications by shifting development to a more neutral
point in the architecture. We analyze what is needed and implement
only what is necessary.
Factivas roadmap to EII is the result of more than 20 years of
helping more than 80 percent of the Fortune Global 500 manage
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information. Our roadmap is designed to maximize your knowledge
investments. We use strategic analysis based on existing information,
components, workflow and the needs of knowledge workers to
formulate a plan that also takes into account your respective IT and
business strategies. We define EIAs that will power your knowledge
initiatives as they enhance decision-making and business
development across the enterprise.
The fact is that some companies have taken technology and
used it more effectively than others. And the ones that dont
use technologies effectively fall behind.- Microsoft
Corporation, Chairman William H. Gates III, quoted in the
August 25, 2003 Business Week special report on the future of
technology.
7
(1) The card that started it all, by Neil Steinberg, Chicago
Sun-Times, March 13, 2000.
(2) April 2003, IDC #29127, Volume 1 Tab: Users
(3) April 2003, IDC #29127, Volume 1 Tab: Users
(4) An integrated information system for planning, scheduling and
controlling the pre- and post-sales activities in an organization.
(5) An application that integrates many human resources
functions, including benefits administration, payroll, recruiting
and training and performance analysis.
(6) CMS initially focused on scanning, storing, and managing an
organizations documents within an organization but today it
typically is used as a catch-all for document imaging, workflow, text
retrieval and related multimedia management. CMS is
software that provides storage, maintenance and retrieval of
documents and all related elements.
(7) Why Tech Will Bloom Again: The Future of Technology, by
Robert D. Hof, Business Week, August 25, 2003.