Why Enterprise Search?

Last blog we asked if Enterprise Search had appeared on your radar screen. There is market research data to support the need for this, but most are done in larger companies.

An Accenture survey found that managers spend more than a quarter of their time searching for information necessary to their jobs, and when they do find it, it is often wrong. Managers spend up to two hours a day searching for information, and more than 50 percent of the information they obtain has no value to them.

Nearly three out of five respondents said that as a consequence of poor information access, almost every day they miss information that might be valuable to their jobs because it exists somewhere else in the company and they just cannot find it. In addition, 42 percent of respondents said they accidentally used the wrong information at least once a week, and 53 percent said that less than half of the information they receive was valuable.

A Capgemini survey of senior managers found that:

• 63% of respondents make decisions at least daily without access to the best available information.
• 40% said this was the result of time pressures in making decisions.

A Global Intranet Trends report indicated that 60% of companies regarded search as business critical and yet only 10% of companies reported their search was anything more than satisfactory.

Again we should say that these are generally larger companies and the research reported was done between 2006 and 2008. On the other hand, the data suggests search tools do not meet the needs of the organization. This results in mistakes due to poor information, the cost implementation and the potential waste of human time and business opportunities.

So I am still trying to figure out if this is something companies in the graphic arts are doing or need to do?

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