Enterprise search — the ability to index and filter data from computers, servers, and the Internet through a single interface — is finally within financial reach of midsize businesses. If you have more than a handful of employees, it may provide the competitive advantage you need. In Summary:| • | Enterprise search helps your employees find relevant information faster, regardless of its location or format. | | • | A complete enterprise search solution should accurately index a broad range of data to support decision-making. | | • | Technology that includes ways to use and share the search function makes enterprise search a tool for business strategy. |
An overwhelming amount of information is scattered throughout the average midsize company. In 2005, the information-technology research firm IDC estimated that every employee in a company produces more than 800 megabytes of digital information every year. That equates to roughly 25,000 double-spaced typed pages, says Mark Kuo, lead product manager for Microsoft Search. As a result, you probably have only a general sense of the information you have, and how to find it and put it to use. Until recently, only large companies could benefit from enterprise search solutions, which pull together relevant information in formats ranging from Microsoft Office Word documents to Microsoft SQL Server data and customer relationship management (CRM) records. Although vendors such as FAST and Autonomy offer sophisticated, complex solutions, they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars — an expense few midsize companies can justify. Today, however, the potential benefits of quick access to strategic data are within a midsize company's financial reach. Here's why — and how — to include enterprise search on your "must-have" IT shopping list. Why you need enterprise search"A firm can no longer conduct normal business effectively without decent search," says Tony Byrne, founder of CMS Watch, a technology analysis firm in Silver Spring, Md., that specializes in content management, search, and portal technology. Without an advanced search tool, employees have to use multiple tools and interfaces to find information — which is not an efficient use of their time. And that translates into real dollars. An April 2006 IDC white paper called "The Hidden Costs of Information Work" put a price tag on the need for search: Information workers typically spend 25 percent of their time (9.5 hours a week) searching for information. This costs about $14,000 per worker per year. It also noted that employees waste three hours a week re-creating content they could not locate or did not know already existed, which costs an additional $4,500 per worker per year. What to look for in search toolsEnterprise search tools sort, screen, and rank data in whatever form it exists. As a result, they eliminate the highest barrier to easy search: the need to convert discrete data into a single type and move it all into a database with fields for every possible search term. Beyond that basic capability, search tools vary greatly in complexity and functionality. So consider the following points: | • | Avoid search tools that might impede productivity or compromise security. Instruct employees not to install their own search tools, says Matt Rosoff, a search tools specialist at Directions on Microsoft, an independent market-analysis firm in Kirkland, Wash. Tools that store indexed results in an online database rather than on an internal server are potential security risks, while desktop search tools that index data on a central server instead of on the desktop create needless network traffic. | | • | The tool you choose must index data, both inside and outside your company, in a meaningful way. In addition to searching e-mail, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets, an enterprise search system should be able to filter results in structured data, such as the records in your enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financial systems. It must also recognize multiple keywords within each document, track a wide range of database fields, and determine when a document was created and by whom, in order to deliver the most significant results first. | | • | Like everything else, your organization will have to balance affordability and functionality. Enterprise search solutions designed for large companies are powerful and flexible, with sophisticated search algorithms — and price tags that begin at more than $100,000. Some hardware-based solutions can index and search 500,000 documents for just $30,000, but Kuo points out that these may be difficult to customize and may force you to upgrade when the system reaches capacity. |
The Microsoft approach to enterprise search: find, use, shareMost important, enterprise search should integrate with other applications so that the results make sense in the context of your company's business processes. This approach is at the heart of Microsoft's search strategy, which is based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The strategy combines: | • | the new desktop search client shipping in Windows Vista | | • | Internet search from Windows Live | | • | the portal, intranet, virtual workspace, and collaboration features in SharePoint Server 2007 | | • | integration with Microsoft business software, including Microsoft Dynamics |
This integration allows individuals to find information on desktops, local networks, and the Internet simultaneously from the SharePoint Server 2007 interface, and then put it to work immediately. For example, SharePoint Server 2007 works with Windows Vista and Windows Live to search for a customer's shipping information, past transactions, current correspondence, and open orders — plus your inventory of the items ordered and contact information for all related vendors, Kuo explains. It does this by accessing information in various business and desktop applications, including Microsoft Office and Microsoft Dynamics. With customization, it can also search within third-party solutions such as supply chain management systems. SharePoint Server 2007 delivers the search results on a single page that shows inventory levels, lets you click a button to ship what is currently available, and provides a link to your suppliers to order more items. You can even right-click on the page and e-mail it to your team through Microsoft Office Outlook. Experts point out that you may not see an immediate or obvious return on investment with enterprise search. Qualitatively, however, search benefits go beyond finding information faster. Enterprise search helps you serve more customers, meet their needs more accurately, reduce duplication of effort, and maybe even catch small problems before they grow. For example, you could aggregate complaint e-mail, sales records, supply chain data, and online message boards, and conclude that you need to recall products made on a particular assembly line several months ago. Given the amount of data and content your employees create every day, however, the true ROI may simply be the productivity your company gains by no longer wasting time on search. Fawn Fitter is a freelance writer in San Francisco, specializing in business and technology. She has written for publications including Fortune Small Business, Knowledge Management, and Computerworld.
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