Business Semantics Management
Empowered Enterprise Search Drives Competitive Advantage

The Market Demand for Business Semantics Management
In addition to the strong business case for optimizing information access, employees, due to what has been called the "Google effect," now have very high expectations when it comes to information accessibility. Because enterprise information is stored in silos, in disparate applications, and is categorized and classified using inconsistent semantics, information access today falls far short of what is needed by the business and expected by employees.

It's estimated that 35% to 60% of the $300 billion spent annually on systems integration is due to semantic inconsistency—a reality that represents a gaping hole in the information management fabric of the enterprise. This does not imply shortcomings in the applications commonly used to manage information, rather it demonstrates a market need for an overarching solution that manages and reconciles semantics across enterprise applications.

Business semantics management solutions enrich and extend existing applications and help them reach their full potential. And they enable companies to deliver comprehensive search results that are more relevant, more precise and more appropriate for the enterprise than Google ever dreamed of.

For most large companies, corporate terminology and semantics are under the control of a select few technical and knowledge workers, like database administrators and taxonomists. These workers manage a very structured data world using databases, spreadsheets and documents.

Unfortunately, more than 80% of an organization's information assets exist outside the structured world and knowledge workers cannot access the information due to the complex and diverse storage methods. BSM solutions provide a framework for managing, reconciling and evolving enterprise semantics across both unstructured and structured information assets. When all content is classified and categorized based on a system that understands the links between inconsistent terminologies, the optimized information access will lead to improved communications and decision making within the organization and among customers, suppliers and partners.

The Role of Business Semantics Management as a Service
The role of BSM solutions, such as those pioneered by SchemaLogic, is to create an overarching semantic model to extend enterprise taxonomy deeper within the organization, as well as outside the firewall. As changes occur in the business, these changes will be expressed via the semantics that describe the business—be it a formula, a product name, a marketing brochure or a job description. BSM provides a way to manage these changes, notify the right parties and keep critical systems in sync.

When the solution is deployed across the enterprise, employees, departments, customers and partners are given real-time access to information trapped in silos across enterprise applications, as well as to "orphaned" unstructured data. Real-time access to these information assets enables companies to make better, more insightful business decisions, as well as optimize resources and operations. In addition, BSM helps companies bring governance to an area that was formerly too complex to monitor or manage.

From a practical point of view, managing, reconciling and evolving enterprise information assets through business semantics management solutions enables:

• B2B and B2C applications: Better match of goods and services to prospective buyers and more effective participation in trading communities spanning supply and demand chains.
• Enterprise search and vertical search: Optimize enterprise search systems by managing, reconciling and evolving enterprise taxonomies and metadata.
• Enterprise portals: Ensure employees, partners and customers have access to the information they need by optimizing access to information assets.

Benefits Speak for Themselves
Companies are gradually beginning to recognize that information management, while essential, cannot alone optimize the "findability" and timely delivery of a company's information assets. The current disconnect between structured and unstructured information, coupled with the organic evolution of the semantics that describe that information, requires enterprises to have an overarching semantic framework with the capability to reconcile inconsistencies across information management systems.

In addition, as information continues to change and grow, a critical component of BSM is a platform and process to engage stakeholders across the enterprise—as opposed to only technical and knowledge workers—in the continued evolution of the semantic framework.

Business semantics management makes companies more competitive by:

• Enriching information management and search applications;
• Supporting and facilitating SOA and Web service oriented architectures;
• Optimizing global brand and product management;
• Enabling governance across structured and unstructured information silos;
• Improving communication/participation among employees, and with customers, suppliers and partners; and
• Fueling development of the business insights that enable your enterprise to make critical decisions.

Use Case: IBM Self-Service Portal
IBM turned to SchemaLogic for help with a key component of their W3 Portal (an HR initiative). The company needed a solution to power a tool called "Blue Pages," which would allow managers at IBM to locate resources within the company that have very specialized skills. As with any large organization, IBM had many ways of describing the same skills and expertise across the company. Without a way to reconcile these inconsistencies across enterprise systems, managers could not identify internal resources with the necessary skills, and instead, needlessly hired outside consultants to support their projects.

With BSM from SchemaLogic, IBM better utilizes its existing resources and reduces reliance on outside contractors. IBM estimates the solution has saved the company $680 million. IBM is currently expanding the technology to the Global Services and Business Consulting arms of the business.

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SchemaLogic (www.schemalogic.com) is a global leader in reconciliation and change management for Global 5000 companies, providing a business semantics management (BSM) solution to manage the ever-changing language of the enterprise. SchemaLogic's solution suite helps organizations establish "communities of collaboration" through living corporate semantics (terminology, definitions, knowledge and know-how) that enable enterprises to increase their competitive advantage and reduce operational costs. For more information about SchemaLogic, call: 425.885.9695 or visit www.schemalogic.com.