What is Enterprise Search?
Making good decisions requires “relevant” information at the right time. But with the rising number of files, finding information is becoming a real detective hunt.
Microsoft Community suggests there are over 500k files on most computers.
20% of US employees ranked “digging for files they need” as the No. 1 problem to support the future of remote work. 58% of them said a quick search for files and documents is a “top-three problem.”
Enterprise search has emerged as a solution to this problem.
So, let’s look at what enterprise search is and how it helps organizations use their data efficiently.
What is enterprise search?
Research defines enterprise search in these words.
Enterprise search may be interpreted as search of digital textual materials owned by an organization, including search of their external Website, company intranet, and any other electronic text that they hold such as email, database records and shared documents.
Enterprise search is basically like having an internal “Google” search engine for your company documents.
The content can be structured or unstructured and in multiple formats like images, video, web pages, documents or more.
Why do you need an enterprise search platform?
So, we have an easy way to search information on the web. Search engines do a great job at showing relevant web content to us using our query. But unlike the web, company documents occur in all shapes and sizes. This makes searching for information just using simple search on your computer difficult.
Research shows employees spend a lot of their time searching for information. For instance,
- A company with 1000+ employees can expect >$5M in wasted annual salary due to poor search.
- Employees spend over 9-10 hours/week to search for information.
- Accenture says that middle managers spend over 2 hrs every day searching for information and 50% of the time, the information is useless.
How does enterprise search impact revenue?
Take the example of a sales representative on call with a prospect. The sales representative just finished the demo. Prospect asked some technical questions about the product, to which the sales representative had no instant answer. She asked for some time to loop in the product team to answer the question.
This leads to delaying the buying decision and sometimes, even exhibits lag on sales’ part.
With enterprise search like Alltius, you can create AI assistants on sales documents which can be used by salespeople to answer objections within seconds on call. This improves sales conversion as it portrays your sales team as confident and trustworthy.
This action directly adds to your revenue!
How Does Enterprise Search Work?
Enterprise search involves the following steps:
- Content Collection
- Processing the content
- Indexing
- Querying
- Search results
So, let’s get behind the scenes of enterprise search.
Step 1: Content Collection
The output of the model is only as good as its input. In order to give better search results, the enterprise search platform needs to have good content as input.
An enterprise search engine acts like a central information hub for your organization. It gathers information from various sources, like documents, online sharing databases, emails, youtube or website page, to make it easier to find what you need. Think of it as a research assistant who can look in all these different places to find the specific document or detail you're looking for.
There are two ways this information-gathering happens:
- Direct Delivery: Sometimes, different departments (like accounting or sales) can directly share their information with the search engine, just like neatly labeling folders in a filing cabinet.
- Active Search: Other times, the search engine needs to actively search through all the different departments and folders in the company, like a librarian looking for a specific book.
This way, you can find the information you need quickly and efficiently, without having to search through different departments or folders yourself.
Step 2: Content Processing
After the enterprise search engine gathers the content, it undergoes a processing stage to prepare it for efficient searching. This processing involves several steps to extract and standardize the text. This involves filtering, tokenization, entity extraction and more.
By performing these transformations, the processing stage ensures the search engine can effectively understand and organize the collected information. This ultimately leads to faster and more accurate retrieval of the content you need.
Step 3: Indexing the Documents
Once the information is processed and prepared, it's stored in a special filing system called an "index." This isn't your typical folder system, though.
Imagine a super-organized library where every book has detailed tags and references. This index allows the search engine to quickly locate and retrieve the information you need when you enter a search query.
Step 4: Querying
Upon receiving a user query, the enterprise search engine initiates a retrieval process. This process involves comparing the user's query against the meticulously indexed content. To ensure the most relevant information is presented, the search engine leverages various techniques like result clustering, ranking and more.
Through these combined efforts, the enterprise search engine delivers a user-centric experience by efficiently retrieving and presenting the most relevant information in response to user queries
Step 5: Search Results
At the end, the search results are displayed in the user interface for the user to go through.
Who can benefit from enterprise search software?
Here's how different groups can benefit from using enterprise search software:
Employees:
They can find information faster, which helps them work more efficiently.They can share knowledge and work together better across the organization.They can quickly access the data they need to make better decisions.
Knowledge workers (like lawyers and consultants):
They can save a lot of time by easily finding documents, emails, and other information from different sources. They can use the collective knowledge and expertise within the company.
Managers and executives:
They can make better business decisions by having easy access to all the information. They can run the company more efficiently by finding and fixing any gaps in knowledge.
IT and security teams:
They can keep data secure and follow all the rules by controlling who can access sensitive information. They don't have to spend as much time managing the search system.
Customers support teams:
They can give customers faster and more accurate answers by quickly finding the right information. They can provide better customer service and make customers happier.
Benefits of using enterprise search
The key benefits of using enterprise search are as below:
Improved data access
Enterprise search software can help employees navigate through company documents easily. Instead of searching through multiple folders, enterprise search solutions can directly provide relevant sources of information within seconds.
Enhanced data security
Enterprise AI search can be used to place restrictions on data access. You can add an additional layer of security on your company documents to ensure only allowed employees can read or access the files.
Data driven decisions
Enterprise AI search tools can help employees search for information they need to make strategic decisions in seconds. Eg. Customer experience professionals can see customer conversation insights by just typing in the query. This improves the ability to use hidden insights from data to make decisions.
Increased operational efficiency
Employees will spend more time on their tasks rather than searching for information. This helps in improving productivity of the employees.
Enhanced customer insights
Learning more about customer preferences, behaviors, and needs through enterprise search can lead to more targeted marketing and greater customer satisfaction
How to select the best enterprise search tool?
Enterprise search tools help employees find information easily. It searches from documents and emails to company information on different websites. But with so many options, how do you pick the right one? Here are some pointers to make a better choice to select an enterprise search tool!
Capabilities: What Can Your Search Tool Do?
- Integrations - The best enterprise search tool connects with a lot of platforms. The more platforms, the more sources of information, the better. Try looking for integrations with your existing tech stack.
- Unified Search vs. Federated Search - For larger enterprises with many data sources, unified search is a better choice. Unified search returns results into one single output. For smaller companies, federated search might be a good choice. It keeps all the results separate.
Security: Keeping Things Safe and Organized
- Security: The search tool should keep information safe, like a vault with a super strong lock. Check for access controls, data storage, data masking and more.
- Scalability - As your company grows, the enterprise search tool should also grow.
Search Results
- Search : The best enterprise search tool understands the nuances of search. Compare search results from different platforms. See how the results are for similar queries.
By following these tips, you'll be well on your way to finding the perfect enterprise search tool for your company.
Addressing Challenges in Enterprise Search
In a world where data privacy and security are more important than ever, businesses need to make sure they protect sensitive information when using search solutions. This article looks at how Enterprise Search can follow rules like GDPR, and the ways it can encrypt data and control who can access it.
Enterprise Search solutions must follow the latest data privacy laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). By using strong access controls, data anonymization, and encryption, Enterprise Search can help companies stay compliant and keep their data safe.
Encryption is a key part of Enterprise Search security. It makes sure data stays private, even if there is a security breach. Advanced encryption methods and secure access controls can prevent unauthorized people from getting access to sensitive information.
One big challenge businesses face is data silos, where information is stuck in different departments or systems. Enterprise Search can solve this problem by promoting shared knowledge and collaboration.
Enterprise Search often has federated search features, which let users search and access information from many different data sources at once. This integration of separate data helps employees find what they need, no matter where it's stored.
Studies show that most of the data collected by companies (about 99.5%) is never used or analyzed. Enterprise Search solutions can help organizations make the most of Big Data, potentially increasing their profits by up to 60%.
By addressing data privacy, security, and silo challenges, Enterprise Search can be a game-changer for businesses.
FAQs
Can Enterprise Search Handle Multilingual Data?
Addressing the capabilities of Enterprise Search systems in handling multilingual data is crucial for global organizations. Exploring the technology's ability to index, search, and retrieve information across different languages, considering cultural nuances and linguistic challenges, can provide valuable insights for multinational companies.
How Does Enterprise Search Support Remote Work Environments?
The shift towards remote work has made accessible and efficient information retrieval more critical than ever. Discussing how Enterprise Search platforms are being optimized for remote access, including cloud-based solutions and mobile accessibility, can highlight the technology's relevance in today's work environment.
What is the difference between enterprise search and Elasticsearch?
Enterprise Search is a broad term that encompasses systems enabling search across an organization's digital assets. Elasticsearch, on the other hand, is a specific open-source search engine built on Apache Lucene, offering powerful full-text search capabilities, often used as a component within an enterprise search solution.
What is the difference between enterprise search and site search?
Enterprise Search refers to searching across all digital assets of an organization, while Site Search is limited to searching content within a specific website.
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