Why is enterprise search so hard?
Enterprise search is scary. We've all heard horror stories about how it does not work, how much it cost, and so on. Many of us have experienced this grief firsthand.
Just a couple of days ago, the intranet manager in an organisation I'm working with said to me "I wouldn't count on the search engine. I'll send you the links." That's exactly what he did as we visited his intranet and I identified things I wanted to go back and examine. This organisation is far ahead of many in that their intranet is accessible from outside the official workplace and authorised external people (like me) can get access within 24 hours. That's truly exceptional.
However, when it comes to enterprise search, they, like most organisations are in trouble.
The Global Intranet Trends for 2009 Report states that out of the 226 organisations who participated in the survey... "Only 10 percent are 'very satisfied' although another 40 percent are 'moderately satisfied'. That means half the participating organisations are dissatisfied with their search implementation. The figures are slightly more favourable than in the previous year's survey where 60 percent reported dissatisfaction. However, this situation is thought-provoking for organisations where access to the right information rapidly is a business success factor. " (page 49).
If you want to gain a better understanding of enterprise search, I highly recommend reading "Successful Enterprise Search Management" by Stephen Arnold and Martin White. Both are recognised experts in the field of search, and the cost and few hours required to read their book will bring you a good understanding of what's involved and what's required to succeed. There is more information on the Intranet Focus web site, and as you can see from the table of contents, you'll get a full view of search management from the introduction through to implementation.

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