How effective is Enterprise Search?

When you follow an industry as closely as we do here at FierceContentManagement, you begin to recognize patterns. One of the areas we look at closely is Enterprise Search because what good is managing content if you can't find it and use it?

To me, search is really the key piece of the content management puzzle. It's what AIIM called 'findability' in a study of search last year. What AIIM found was that enterprise search still had a ways to go to help users find content wherever it is (as I wrote in an EContent article called AIIM Study Finds Enterprise Search Still Lacking). Now comes a study from search vendor Recommind that suggests the situation does not appear to have improved very much since AIIM released its study last June.

Key findings

The study was conducted by Osterman Research and looked at 200 people from companies averaging 10,000+ employees using questions written by Recommind. Let's look at three key findings in the study:

• Of the companies represented in the survey, only 42% have an enterprise search solution in place

Think about that. It would mean that 58 percent of the companies in the survey don't have an enterprise search solution. My guess is they do and the people surveyed don't realize that what they are using to find information is in fact an enterprise search tool, even if they don't label or understand it as such. I just cannot believe that a company with 10,000 employees could be operating at this point without some sort of search tool in place to help them find information (even if it weren't a good one).

• Employees in companies with 10,000+ workers spend 38 minutes per search

I would be surprised if most people spend 38 seconds searching for something, never mind 38 minutes. We are trained and spoiled by Google searches which give us something to work with almost immediately. It's not as easy to find a specific document in the enterprise, but if you know something--title, keywords, author, anything--you should either find it or find someone who can help you get a better grip on what you are looking for. If after say 10 minutes, you're still looking, you're probably lost in the wilderness and need help.

• 29% of employees say that they haven’t been briefed--either by an IT manager or GC--about the potential role that email could play in a lawsuit or eDiscovery event.

This one is easier to swallow. Findability is one part of the search issue and governance is another. It's entirely possible or even likely that companies have failed to train employees about the role of governance in content policy.

So what's it mean?

I asked Craig Carpenter, Vice President of Marketing and General Counsel at Recommind to help me interpret these findings. He says his initial reaction to the 38 minute search was similar to mine, but he points out that with layoffs and staff reductions, it entirely possible that employees are being asked to find documents written by employees who no longer work for the company. They might know little about the document and people who are paid to manage the system are overworked and can't help.

But overall Carpenter says beyond the 38 minute search average, he's not surprised by these results. "Other than the 38 minute result, which I will agree with you is pretty darn high, the rest of these results aren't terribly shocking." But he says this isn't about presenting findings in a way to sell search tools. "The message isn't 'hey you're not spending money on infrastructure you need to--oh by the way, we sell infrastructure.' The message is that companies are being penny wise and pound foolish." What he means is that without search tools in place, you aren't empowering your users to work more efficiently and be more effective (which saves money and raises morale in the long run). And Carpenter says this is even more profound on the governance side where a little investment today, especially in a time where litigation costs are rising and stricter regulatory costs are on the horizon, could save tons of money in the long run.

While search companies sell search services, and the numbers I pulled out of this survey may be hard to swallow, the fact is that end users clearly have issues with enterprise search and vendors need to be doing a better job of resolving fundamental findability issues in the enterprise. As Carpenter pointed out, in a time of reduced staffing, it's more critical than ever that technology help, not hinder employees in performing their jobs. - Ron