Category Archives: Search Business Analysis

Approaches for Building a Business Case for Enterprise Search

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Approaches for Identifying Information Access Needs and to Build a Business Case for Enterprise Search and Findability

We have defined a number of alternative approaches to identify the need and value of search-driven findability to support an organisation or a specific process. In other words, different methods to build a business case for enterprise search in a specific organization or process.

Task oriented

Analysing information access needs in relation to specific work task within a business process (by utilizing e.g. the method developed by Byström/Strindberg or the Customer Carewords method).

Process oriented

Mapping the process flow of sequential and dependent (value-adding) activities and the related information access needs, Analysing the dependencies/accessibility of information systems in the different activities (e.g. by using some kind of Business Process Modeling, like the Astrakan-method).

Decision oriented

Identifying and analysing the decision points and the related information access needs within a process.

Risk oriented

Analysing situations within a process or for decision points where the right information was not available. Or even worse if there only was old and unvalid information available? What would have been the outcome of the situation if the desired/needed information had been available? How can we avoid for this scenario to be repeated? Inspired by Lynda Moulton at LWM Technology Services and Martin White of IntranetFocus.

Effect oriented

Determine the desired effects from search-driven findability and define measuring point to follow up the effects over time. Includes also identification of the related target groups/personas and their information access needs to be fulfilled for the effects to be reached (based on the InUse method and previous work at Ericsson (Case Study) and Forsmark (Case Study). An enhanced variant of this method is currently being developed in a project at Chalmers.

Our ambition is to use these methods to help organisations identify information access needs and findability barriers and to help motivate search investments. The analysis could for example be performed by our Findability Business Consultants as part of an in-depth findability review focusing on either an existing application or a specific business process.

The Enterprise Search and Findability Report 2012 is ready

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No strategy, no budget, no resources. This is the common scenario for enterprise search and findability in many organisations today. Still Enterprise Search is considered a critical success factor in 75% of organisations that responded to the global survey that ran from March to May this year.

The Enterprise Search and Findability Report 2012 is now ready for download.

The Enterprise Search and Findability report 2012 shows that 60% of the respondents expressed that it is very/moderately hard to find the right information. Only 11% stated that it is fairly easy to search for information and as few as 3% consider it very easy to find the desirable information. This shows that there still is a large untapped potential for any organisation to get great value from investing in enterprise search. For a relatively small investment, preferably in personnel it is possible to make search a lot better. The survey also reveals that  organisations who are very satisfied with their search, have a (larger) budget, more resources and systematically work with analysing search.

What is your primary goal for utilising search technology in your organisation?Figure. What is your primary goal for utilising search technology in your organisation?

The primary goal for using search is to accelerate retrieval of known information sources, 91%, and to improve the re-use of content (information/knowledge), 72%. This indicates that often search within organisations is used as a discovery tool for what already is known. If looking over the next three years, as many as 77% think that the amount of information in the organisation will increase. This means that every year it will be even more important be able to find the right information and that means Enterprise search is still very much needed, as stated in the following great presentations (on video):  Why Business Success Depends on Enterprise Search (by Martin White of Intranet Focus) and The Enterprise Search Market – What should be on your radar? (by Alan Pelz-Sharpe of 451 Research)

Download the full report.

Findability, a holistic approach to implementing search technology

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We are proud to present the first video on our new Vimeo channel. Enjoy!

Findability Dimensions

Successful search project does not only involve technology and having the most skilled developers, it is not enough. To utilise the full potential and receive return on search technology investments there are five main dimensions (or perspectives) that all need to be in focus when developing search solutions, and that require additional competencies to be involved.

This holistic approach to implementing search technology we call Findability by Findwise.

The Business Case for Enterprise Search

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1. Achieve higher employee efficiency levels by providing company-wide, swift access to relevant information

Every business day, employees need to access information stored in various enterprise applications and databases. Enterprise Search addresses this need by providing your co-workers with swift access to relevant information and by consolidating, ranking and presenting it properly. The value proposition of enterprise search is thus to promote core business by enabling co-workers to work more efficiently, to avoid redoing work done elsewhere and to produce better quality as the information they need can be found through one single search solution.

2. Make more money by providing revenue-driving business processes with tailored means to access and act on information

The larger the corporation, the more different information access needs. Besides providing large user groups with general access to corporate information, an Enterprise Search solution can be tailored to meet the specific needs of revenue-driving business processes such as solution sales, business intelligence, patent management and mergers and acquisitions. There might not be that many people working in these areas, but the outcome of their work can have a tremendous impact on the bottom line of your company.

3. Leverage the hidden value of existing IT investments

The return on investment of Enterprise Search is not only a matter of getting your money’s worth for the license and deployment costs of the Enterprise Search solution. As the solution makes all the information hidden in document repositories findable through one search solution, the Enterprise Search solution will in fact help you get a return on investment on content management investments already made.

4. Lower your IT costs by centralizing access to information

Reduce your license, maintenance and support costs by providing one centralized Enterprise Search platform to handle all information access requests. Most companies store information in various information systems such as intranets and web sites, collaboration portals, document management systems, CRM and ERP systems and many other enterprise applications and databases. A typical set-up is to have separate search tools for each of these systems. By using your Enterprise Search platform as a service, you can replace these siloed search functions with one centrally monitored platform that provides search to each of these applications. In this way, you can reduce the annual costs on licenses, maintenance and support for separate search applications.