Let’s talk about Enterprise Level Information Modeling. By ‘Enterprise Level’, we mean the very top level of ECM Information Hierarchy. How should we organize the corporate information so that it makes sense to the general users? As opposed to adopting the Departmental Approach right away, it is always a good idea to think about whether we need to balance the Departmental Approach with Cross-functional Approach.

Normally, Departmental Approach leads to a model where corporate information is sliced into departmental folders which can be further sliced into sub-group folders. Cross-functional Approach is driven by the view that the business operation is always conducted in some format of collaboration, process, or projects. Through experience, we have learned that using the combination of both approaches works very well for various types of businesses.

For Pharmaceutical Industry, it is becoming an industry best practice to develop the template folder structure for Product (Drug) Folder. When you look into the Drug Development Life Cycle for a pharmaceutical company, you will realize that various functional groups collaborate with one another as the drug goes through different development stages. The Product Folder becomes the central document repository that captures any drug specific documents.

For Companies in Consulting Business, you will realize that the business life cycle is driven by Customers. Creating Customer Folder and capturing all the customer, project related documents is what has worked well for a lot of companies in consulting business.

After evaluating the need for having such cross-functional repository, you can start forming functional group folders. As you dive into each functional group, you may also identify the need for having cross-functional area in that level.

Having a great understanding of the business model and creating functional group diagrams will definitely help as you flesh out your information model.