SG&A Taxonomy

“…Taxonomies provide a common language for structuring information so that people can easily retrieve and manage it.”
Forrester Research

As companies begin integrate functional processes at an enterprise level it is crucial that organizations adopt an enterprise SG&A taxonomy.

It is not uncommon for companies to have more then a few financial systems, multiple document management systems, and multiple ERP systems. This causes gaps in information assets because each business system has its own meta data, classification schemes, indexes and search systems.

A SG&A taxonomy allows you to organize content and speak a common language across the business. Taxonomy is a communications issue and lack of a common taxonomy manifests itself as one of the root causes of process misalignment. A common SG&A taxonomy includes business process mapping across the enterprise and includes functions, processes and activities that occur within the walls of any organization.

Content is mapped to process and activity in the following categories:

Finance
Information Technology
Human Resources
Procurement/supply chain
Sales & Marketing
Customer Service
Corporate Services

A common taxonomy allows the people in silos to talk to one another in the same language, a SG&A taxonomy is built around business functions for a reason, the efficient and effective use of content (i.e. external websites, customer portals, process specific applications etc.) in the functional business units, allowing system owners to see the value of being part of an enterprise taxonomy that facilitates business transformation.