There’s little doubt that information’s one of the most important assets of every company today and it’s usually scattered around the organisation and in different formats. “Documentation plays a crucial role in the information process,” explains Veronique Wittebolle, COO, Information Mapping. “Very often, we see that documents are dense and complex and it’s very hard for people reading the documents to find the information they need. This can lead to human errors, cost increases, higher risks and issues with compliance,” she adds. Structuring documentation in a way that’s useful is where Information Mapping comes in. It has created a global writing standard that helps people and companies create structured information, helping solve business-critical documentation challenges.

Information Mapping and PwC are now working in partnership to help clients standardise documentation ready for AI. “There’s a growing need for standardisation, especially with AI disrupting the business landscape,” says Veronique Wittebolle. She goes on, “We were looking for a partner that could help us automate our standard writing process as, at the time, mapping documents according to Information Mapping’s methodology was done manually.” To solve that, PwC’s technical team learned the company’s software and standards so that it could develop a product to automate it, making mapping of legacy documents much faster.

It’s not just for our technical expertise that Information Mapping turned to PwC. “PwC has expertise in different fields and gave us advice not just on product development, but also for instance on changing the business model and the go-to-market for the product, as well as other aspects such as data protection and security, all of which have to be covered when you talk about (Gen)AI. It’s good to have a one-stop place where you can get all the advice and help,” Veronique Wittebolle notes. PwC’s Michiel De Keyzer, Director Cloud, Data and AI, concurs, “serving clients in a different way, as Information Mapping is now doing, is about more than just developing the product on a technology level, but also thinking about the business model, pricing, legal aspects, etc. We bring all that together to deliver a complete solution.”

The partnership is about much more than just PwC supporting Information Mapping. Both firms are able to leverage each other’s client base to help a larger number of firms solve their documentation challenges. “With clients, we see a lot of problems with information not being structured, with them not being able to find the right information, not finding answers to their questions. Bringing the structure that Information Mapping can provide to those documents can help and actually transform certain functions within certain businesses. Transformation is our core business. If AI can help and bring that structure in an automated way rather than manually, that triggers an additional interest as AI is high on the agenda of all our clients,” explains Michiel De Keyzer. And he adds, “I think a lot of our clients are expecting a lot from AI and this is a fundamental thing that they’ll need to do to make sure they can get the maximum out of it. Structuring documents using the Information Mapping methodology can help (Gen)AI solutions like Chatbot or Copilot work better. Going forward, this partnership is going to help clients in many ways.”