Enterprise Search in Practice: A Presentation of Survey Results and Areas for Expert Guidance
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GILBANE BOSTON 2012 Enterprise Search in Practice: A Presentation of Survey Results and Areas for Expert Guidance
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The presentation has two main focuses. First, to present some interesting and sometimes rather contradicting findings from the Enterprise Search and Findability survey 2012. Second, to introduce an holistic approach to implementing search technology involving five different aspects that are all important to succeed and to reach findability rather than just the ability to search. Presented at Gilbane Conference 2012 in Boston USA on the 28th of November by Mattias Ellison.
Transcript of Enterprise Search in Practice: A Presentation of Survey Results and Areas for Expert Guidance
GILBANE BOSTON 2012
Enterprise Search in Practice:
A Presentation of Survey Results and Areas for Expert Guidance
Agenda
• The Enterprise Search and Findability Survey
• Survey results
• From Search to Findability – A holistic approach
• Concluding findings
• Founded 2005 in Sweden
• Fast growing consultancy company
• Focus on search and Findability solutions
• Leverage business value with search technology
• Technology independent – both proprietary and open source
• Offices in the Nordic countries, Poland and Australia
• +200 customers world-wide, US presence since 2011 (SF)
ENTERPRISE SEARCH AND
FINDABILITY SURVEY
About the survey
• Annual survey initiated in 2012
• Aimed at practitioners (with responsibility for search)
• Increase understanding in the benefits, problems and
trends in enterprise search
• The 2013 survey will open in January/February
Survey respondents and demographics 2012
• 170 respondents globally
• 28 countries
• Europe: 59.4% (101 respondents)
• North America: 22.3% (38 respondents)
• 60.8% > 1000 Employees
• North America: 71.1% global orgs
• Search vendors and integrators excluded
Hope to double the number of respondents in 2013!
SURVEY RESULTS 2012
Is it easy to find the right
information within your organization today?
59.5% Moderately or very
hard
14.0% Fairly or very easy
Do you have multiple
content repositories?
50.7% Multiple repositories
63.6% Multiple repositories
North America:
What are the obstacles to finding the right information?
63.4% Poor Search Functionality
50.0% Lack of adequate tags
51.4% Inconsistency in how we tag content
52.1% Don't know where to look
North America
48.6% Poor Search Functionality
62.9% Lack of adequate tags
65.7% Inconsistency in how we tag content
54.3% Don't know where to look
What is the level of satisfaction with search?
19.6% Mostly or very
satisfied
How to meet the search challenge?
Hard to find information
Multiple repositories
Low awareness of where to look for information
Poor search functionality
Low satisfaction with search
We need to address multiple aspects to reach Findability
– a holistic approach to work and succeed with search
Simple search
Search driven Findability Search technology - platform & functionality
Organisation - ownership & governance
Information - quality & structure
Users - needs & capabilities
Business - needs & goals
BUSINESS
How critical is finding the right information to your business
goals and success?
75.0% Imperative or
significant
Best Practice from the Business perspective
• Identify and analyze Findability barriers related to existing
business goals and strategies
• Map application areas for search (e.g. intranet search,
people search, product search)
• Define clear Findability goals for search applications
• Define targeted KPI’s and measure the solution effects
• Establish an organization wide strategy and roadmap to guide and prioritize search investments
Business - needs & goals
What’s the primary goal for utilizing
search technology?
86.6% Accelerate retrieval of known
information sources
70.6% Improve re-use of content
(Information/ knowledge)
67.3% Increase collaboration
Do you have a search strategy in place?
14.2% Yes
Is there a budget for search?
60.5% No or don’t know
Do you calculate
ROI/TCO for search?
62.1% No
Are there any KPIs for search?
58.6% No
USERS
Best Practice from the User perspective
• Get to know your users and their Findabilty needs
• Make sure your solution is easy to use
• Perform continuous usability evaluations, like usage tests and expert evaluations
• Make sure users find what they are looking for
• Enable feedback loops for complaints, feedback and praise
Users - needs & capabilities
Have you defined user target groups when designing your search application interfaces?
30.5% Yes
Do you perform user experience tests?
18.1% Regularly
Can users provide feedback?
72.3% Yes + Planned
INFORMATION
Best Practice from the Information perspective
• Identify and analyze information sources to be integrated in search
• Establish a content life cycle process to clean up, archive or delete outdated/irrelevant information
• Establish taxonomies and a common metadata standard
• Ensure Findability and good quality of information by adding structured and suitable metadata
• Help publishers get started with processes for better findability
Information - quality & structure
Is there an owner of information in your organization?
29.5% Yes
Is there a content lifecycle management process in place?
52.9% No
Is there a standard for what metadata to use?
North America
26.9% Yes
23.1% Planned 2012/13
Do you have a taxonomy in place in the organization?
60% No
ORGANIZATION
Best Practice from the Organization perspective
• Allocate resources!
• Establish an organization to manage, maintain and develop search over time
• Define processes and ownership for Business, Technical and Editorial governance
• Perform Search Analytics to understand and act on user behavior
• Create easy to use administration interfaces
• Perform training, end-user and editorial
Organisation - ownership & governance
Do you analyze search logs?
58.3% Yes
Number of employees working with search?
50.4% Less than One
North America
29.0% Less than One
Who owns search?
57.6% IT
North America: 78.8% IT
Who takes the final decision regarding search?
70.9% IT
North America: 87.9% IT
SEARCH TECHNOLOGY
Best Practice from the Technology perspective
• Select a search platform that is aligned with business needs (search strategy)
• Utilize the full potential of the selected platform
• Design your architecture with the Findability roadmap in mind (search-as-a-service)
• Avoid multiple search solutions (if possible)
Search technology - platform & functionality
Do you use the same search solution both inside and
outside the firewall?
30.4% Yes
Technology not featured in the 2012 report
• In-depth technology questions included in the survey
• Only 55% respondents
• Too small data set to include in the 2012 report
CONCLUDING FINDINGS
The large majority state that…
• Finding information is business critical
• Users don’t know where to look for information
• Search functionality is poor
• Satisfaction with search is low
…and yet there is often
• No strategy
• No budget …for search
• No resources
?
CONTRADICTORY FINDINGS…
The number of Full Time Equivalents (FTE) is 1-2 or more.
what the Very Satisfied DO
LEADING ORGANIZATIONS
have a taxonomy in place
67%
have metadata standard
83% do usage testing regularly
50%
have feedback functionality
84%
Sign-up and download report
Sign-up to participate in the 2013 survey and
download the full 2012 report: www.findwise.com/about-us/enterprise-search-and-findability-survey
Additional presentations available at: Slideshare.net/Findwise
Global + EUROPE + NORTH AMERICA
