At the close of 2007 I had the privilege to be a co-presenter on a Google webinar focused on Universal Search. I have posted the slides used to slideshare (Slideshare Link) and I have posted the slides below:
In the presentation I reference a market report conducted by my former company, Delphi Group, in 2006. We found that the majority, 63% of business users, utilize 2-3 search tools in a typical week. Another 29% used more than 3. The reality of Enterprise Search is that it does not exist as a single entity or functionality. For most business users, search is a multi-tool experience, for a variety of reasons.
During the Google webinar, we polled the audience of approximately 150 people and asked how many search tools they currently used. As the chart below indicates, the results showed that the situation is only getting worse. That is to say, 40% of the audience that day indicated that they use more than 3 search tools daily.
[A full 20% claim to use only one search tool (over zealous Google customers?). Quite surprisingly, 7% claim they do not use any search tools. Who are these people - gifted with divine wisdom?]
While search functionality may be improving, the positioning of search as a enterprise platform or competency is still not a reality. Indeed, we are moving further away from that goal. Users are expected to use any number of search tools to find relevant content in multiple repositories and applications.
While it can be argued that the criticality of search may warrant multiple search engines in-house, each tailored to a particular set of content and/or user need, one should hope that a common interface that could cut across all content and dynamically support all types of queries should be forthcoming. Without such an approach, there is significant time and frustration spent thrashing back and forth between collections, search tools and interfaces. (The Delphi study included in my slides has statistics on this phenomena as well.)
During the Google webinar, we also polled the audience regarding the percentage of enterprise content that is searchable. As the chart below indicates, 47% claim that 50% or more of the enterprise content is discoverable (only 12% indicated that >75% of content is discoverable.)
Clearly, we still have a ways to go before enterprise search can be considered truly enterprise-wide: encompassing all enterprise content, utilizing a single interface with consistent functionality and results across all content.
These issues, and more are sure to emerge and be investigated more deeply in our upcoming Market IQ, slated for publication in Q2 2008. Stay tuned.
