Search for Business

A best-fit enterprise search system can not only increase productivity, but also save a lot of cost

By KTP Radhika

Finding out relevant information fast and efficient is crucial for all, and that explains the importance of search engines in our life. On the web, there are search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo to meet this requirmeent, but for enterprises, relying on general tools may not be an easy option as most of their data remains internal and beyond the access of search engines. That necessitates the need for enterprise search engines, a market that’s gaining momentum worldwide now.

In the world of business, many organizations search internal content by logging into to applications and systems with virtually no way to search globally across siloed data. As the volume of data increases thanks to big data explosion, the need for improved enterprise search platforms and analytic tools have become ever more important.

So how are enterprise search engines different from popular internet search engines? How are they going to ease and smooth business process? What are they offering to the management and employees?

Businesses today are aware about the value they could extract from big data to help shape business strategies, sales, marketing, and more. However as data volumes have soared from megabytes to zettabytes, extracting useful data has become more complex. According to research firm IDC, the average knowledge worker spends about a quarter of his or her day looking for information. Also they are only successful at finding that information 50% of the time and sometimes do not have the capabilities to recreate the information needed.
Enterprise search engines predominantly search for business data within the enterprise applications. It typically comprises data feeds (for structured or unstructured data), business-application specific intelligence to understand business rules, data flow and context in which the data resides.

Opines Sridhar Iyengar, Vice President, Product Management ManageEngine, “Without a good enterprise search, it would be very difficult to glean meaningful inferences from all the data within an organization. To do so manually, in real time, would be humanly impossible, as it requires several complex algorithms and calculations. Having a proper enterprise search system brings a holistic view and productivity gain to businesses by providing actionable results in near real time.”

Fast and secure
Enterprise search is very much different from a consumer or an internet search. The main difference between enterprise search and the regular web search is that enterprise search operates within an enterprise. So it usually pulls data from intranet, knowledge repository, local file system of the enterprise, predefined databases, previous project documentation, publications etc. Therefore it will be faster than web search engines, can present data in more structured format and can be coupled with advanced search techniques to narrow down the desired results.

For example, the enterprise search engine will know whether the data required is from a CRM application or an HR system and where to retrieve that data from. In addition to this,   . It is also common for enterprise search engine platforms to tie into business intelligence platforms to present the data.

The vast majority of content on the Internet is accessible anonymously, so a user would not expect to find information that requires authentication. This means that Internet search engines would not have to trim out results that the user should not see. So, given the same query, every user gets the same results. In the enterprise, security looks very different.

Explains Ramkumar Pichai, GM – Microsoft Office Division, Microsoft Corporation India, “Here most content is secured by default. So items are trimmed out of search results if the user does not have the appropriate permissions. Given the typically high variance of permissions across combinations of users, repositories, and content, a search system needs to integrate well with the security model and provide results based on permissions of the person conducting the search.”

Boosting productivity
Enterprise search is a powerful tool for boosting productivity since employees would consume less time in searching the information. IDC estimates that fruitless searches can cost an organization millions of dollars annually. The expense of not finding the information needed costs an organization employing 1,000 knowledge workers about US $5.3 million per year as they search through vast amount of structured and unstructured data. This also impedes workplace efficiency, stalling projects, and derailing time lines. At the same time, IT mangers use ample amount of time to manage, organize and locate company information.
A good enterprise search will not only save time of the employee but also will provide relevant information. Agrees Chella Namasivayam, CIO, iGate. “Enterprise search will enable single point search capability to search through data or content spread across the systems and employees would consume less time in searching the information. It will increase the productivity of employees and make their job simpler.”

Another important aspect is reusability of the resources. “We can reuse the same resource a multiple number of times thus saving time and increasing the expertise of the user. All sorts of resources like guideline documents, proof of concepts, white papers, various deliverables etc. can be maintained and used in a single repository equipped with an enterprise search engine,” feels Arnab Basu, Executive Director, Technology Consulting – PwC India. It also encourages sharing information and boost user satisfaction level. For example, implementing Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint has helped Manupatra Information Solutions, a growing law publishing company based out of Noida, not only in getting more accurate and relevant searches but also has helped in increasing the efficiency of sharing and retrieving documents. Performance has improved dramatically and the relevancy of results on queries has increased and renewal rates are up by 12–13%. “Users are more efficient and productive with the new search capability, because they find the information they seek faster. Search performance has also improved, which highly boosts productivity and has helped in sharing information,” reveals Deepak Kapoor, CEO, Manupatra.

Relevance matters
It is true that enterprise search solutions will ease business process. However, there are some key factors that would determine the success of enterprise search. And relevancy is the first in line. “A good search engine should be able to provide contextual results. This means, if a user searches for a specific customer information, the search engine should be able to provide results related to that customer with the same context from across various applications such as CRM, support, social media, etc. This is a tough challenge and not easy to solve,” reveals Iyengar.
Another main factor is about the familiarity of interface. An unfamiliar, complex, or inconvenient user interface will be a barrier to adoption. According to Basu, the interface through which a user tries to access the resource must be a simple and user friendly one, since too much complexity in the interface demotivates the user to search. “Consumers expect ease-of-use and a certain amount of slickness when it comes to interacting with products; the bar is high when it comes to how they can get work done,” admits Pichai of Microsoft. Also search should be available from the interfaces of frequently used applications.
Correct indexing of the information content is important for fast and accurate search. At the same time, the resources must be updated and maintained regularly so they remain consistent with the user requirement. “For any new generation of a product, user experience goals are straightforward. Make it easier for the user to get work done faster, cheaper, and better. A simple, intuitive, attractive design also helps,”

Successful search
Enterprises globally including India are beginning to realize the possibility that the data they already possess could have nuggets of information that could lead them to a path of higher profitability. Being able to transform this dream into reality has now become a CIO’s job. If the CIO is able to bring in the ‘best fit’ enterprise search system and demonstrate its value, it can increase profitability for the business. Hence this has now become a priority for the CIO.
As of now, enterprise search platforms are in an emerging stage in Indian organizations. Some of the large Indian corporates and the firms in the services industry have structured knowledge management solutions internally. “We are seeing organizations waking up to the fact that enterprise search could be important,” says Iyengar.

As more and more companies start recognizing the need, industry experts foresee a bigger and brighter market for business search systems in the near future with more players entering the fray.