Unstructured Data
One of the pioneers of an integrated use of structured and unstructured data is EDS, a systems integrator for over 9,000 corporate customers. Its large client base implies that it buys countless servers, PCs, networking gear, software and services from numerous suppliers who sell to its offices spread in 65 countries. The contracts with its suppliers are a valuable source of information to find ways to lower prices, as well as to evaluate suppliers based on their response times and other metrics.
The benefits of integrating unstructured data can extend to streamlining the business processes including increasing the efficiencies in the supply chain. Motorola has used EII to integrate its information flow to be able to see the order status at every stage of its supply chain network.
Modern text mining technology has progressed beyond keyword searches of familiar search engines and increasingly looks for items that fit a pattern. Searching by keywords often throws up irrelevant results because the meaning of words can change with context. This is achieved by using taxonomies, while mining textual information, which can ferret out results that are inter-related. The significant difference in searching by taxonomies is illustrated by the experience of Chelsea & Scott Ltd., a retailer of children’s products under the OneStepAhead and Leaps and Bounds brands. Customers could not often find the relevant products because they were not aware of their existence. They could, however, describe the needs of their babies such as their need for comfort. Installation of a natural language search engine change matters and a search by comfort yields results of all the products that meet this need.
The integration of analytical and business processes requires additional choices involving technologies that help to integrate them. Applications, content and data repositories, analytical software and workflows management software have existed independently as discrete processes. Increasingly, they will operate as a seamlessly integrated, continuous process that can be monitored from an all embracing GUI or an enterprise portal. The analytical tools are integrated by “portlets” or web services. These portals are available from companies like BEA Systems which earlier specialized in application servers or players like Vignette which earlier specialized in enterprise content management or from companies like Plumtree, the only remaining company from the former ‘pure-play’ portal providers.