Making the Case for Enterprise Search

What prompted my interest in Enterprise Search was a bottleneck created in trying to use a bad system. Using the system created a bottleneck. But if the system worked well, the investment in time might have been offset by the reduction in lost time in looking for information and making mistakes due to poor information. But that was not the case.

The more common way to make the business case is to look at the total time lost looking for information or identifying the costs of mistakes made because of bad or unfindable information. Market research shows that managers typically spend hours a day looking for information. But most managers aren’t aware of the time they spend looking for information because it tends to be 10 minutes here and there in the course of a day. But just six occasions, when it takes 10 minutes to find that critical piece of information, will take an hour off the working day. Multiply that by the number of people looking and you may have 8 hours a day of lost time.

Where a search application really shines from a productivity perspective is in customer support roles, where the tangible metrics include:

• Number of calls handled
• Number of calls that do not require follow-up calls
• Improvement in customer satisfaction
• Closure of new business through matching customer needs
• Reduction in staffing levels
• Speed of induction for new staff

These are all numbers that have very direct impacts on revenues and margins - especially important during challenging economic situations.

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