The enterprise search function is getting a whole new meaning as companies seek to drive more value from their knowledge bases and use insights to drive growth.
This has necessitated the need for modern enterprise search solutions that go way beyond the traditional basic search. Luckily, the advent of artificial intelligence has created opportunities for companies to take advantage of intelligent enterprise search.
What is intelligent enterprise search?
Intelligent enterprise search is the use of Artificial Intelligence technologies to enable intuitive and insight-rich search experiences. Users have a friendly, single point of entry to the entire company’s information sources.
Some of the AI technologies that we use to power intelligent enterprise search include Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing, and semantic search, among others.
Essentially, what intelligent enterprise search does is that it makes it possible for users to have real-time access to the most important answers that are critical for purposes such as decision-making and service provision.
Thanks to intelligent search, some organizations have been able to completely transform their knowledge discovery and this has enabled them to complete one week of work in a few minutes. Others have reported revenue increases upwards of 30%.
What about your organization? What impact will intelligent enterprise search deliver for you? Please contact us to discover where you can deploy intelligent enterprise search and transform your business.
Benefits of intelligent enterprise search
Imagine the value of all that information that your company produces, yet it takes so long to find it. In the worst-case scenario, employees may never benefit from this information. Intelligent enterprise search changes all this and delivers the following benefits:
1. Access to all the organization’s information, wherever it is
End users are able to extract answers from information regardless of the format of location, inside or outside the company.
In the absence of effective access, this information would be worthless because the end user may never succeed in finding it at the right time. Think, for example, of information residing in big data in complex databases that ordinary users have no idea how to operate. Now imagine the ordinary user being able to extract information from such systems with just a simple search from their devices!
2. Intelligent enterprise saves time
According to the IDC, an employee that depends on knowledge to do their work will spend approximately two and a half hours per day searching for the right information. This translates to about 30% of their workday wasted!
Intelligent enterprise search will save this time, meaning employees will be more productive by completing their tasks faster since they are able to find the information they need faster. This agility is very important in a highly competitive business landscape like what we have today.
3. Intelligent enterprise search simplifies access to historical information
Historical information is one of the most difficult to access in the absence of a really good enterprise search solution. Think of a customer who bought a product some three or five years back. This customer makes a call and the support agent needs to go back to their past communication to see, for example, the specifications of the product version they purchased. How about having to dig through email communication to find out what the customer may have discussed with other agents.
With intelligent search, all archives are not only a click away but are also well organized. It feels like one is accessing information that was created today. No need to open pages and pages of emails or make calls to other agents to ask them to try and remember what they discussed with the customer.
Remember, this does not apply to support departments alone. Anyone within the organization may at one point find a need to access information from way back, and a smart enterprise search solution will simplify their work.
4. Intelligent enterprise search improves decision-making
The one important thing that intelligent enterprise search does is that it makes it easy to find useful information, or access the right experts at the right time. Think of what this means in a decision-making setting. It means quick, informed decisions.
With this, the organization will not only move quickly but also make the right moves. This increases business agility, as decision-makers are not derailed by tons of information that lacks organization and coherence.
5. AI-powered enterprise search can accelerate discovery
A typical AI enterprise search system is designed to understand the context and intent of a query. This level of understanding enables the systems to give not only relevant but also intuitive information that can lead the user to discoveries that unearth new viewpoints. Sometimes, accidental discoveries can drive growth and even lead to new ideas that can redefine the organization’s offerings and give it an unparalleled competitive edge.
Additionally, a typical AI -powered search system is always learning from the constant interactions with users. The system uses these interactions to refine the algorithms, enabling it to anticipate the needs of the user. Let’s say user Catherine is constantly searching for materials relating to cost reduction. The enterprise search system will eventually learn that Catherine is tasked with finding opportunities where the company can cut down on costs. Over time, the system will offer valuable insights into this line, helping Catherine to discover hidden cost-cutting opportunities.
How enterprise search works
The enterprise search process begins with content. The content is then indexed, classified, and ranked. The ranking is important to ensure that users get the most relevant information, accurate to be precise.
Let’s run through this process briefly.
1. Content identification
This is where it all starts. A typical organization has massive data that is normally created within the company or originates from various external sources.
Some examples of this data include marketing information, processes, policies, customer histories, competitor analysis, market trends, expert profiles, etc. Normally, this information is spread across the organization. It could be sitting in employees’ computers, emails, and the below popular systems that organizations use:
- Database Management Systems
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions
- Content Management Systems (CMSs)
- Human Resource Management systems
- Filing systems
- Hard copy documents
- Websites
- Social networks
- The cloud (both public and private)
2. Crawling, indexing, and analysis
This is the heart of enterprise search and this part is executed by the search engine, which is basically what we develop and customize for organizations:
The enterprise search system starts by crawling all the content from all the sources above, and even more depending on how wide your company’s content is spread. During crawling, the enterprise search engine gathers critical information from various sources.
Once the enterprise search engine finishes crawling, the next step is indexing. Here, it analyzes the information and enriches it where necessary. This is done through identifying relationships and storing the outcomes in an organized manner. This then forms the basis for accurate and fast retrieval of information by the end users within the company.
3. Search
The final step is search. Employees, or rather the end users, request information through the enterprise search interface. When a user requests information, the enterprise search platform goes to the indexed information and picks information that is relevant to the user’s query. It then presents the answer in a format that is convenient for the user, while taking into account the user’s work environment.
Examples of intelligent enterprise search is used in organizations
These are some of the use cases where organizations are deploying AI-powered enterprise search
1. Support portals
Let employees, customers and other stakeholders solve issues by using different knowledge from different sources within the organization.
2. R&D
Empower your R&D department to discover new opportunities and solve big challenges by simply integrating information from different sources to derive powerful insights.
3. Intranet portals
Give all employees a single access point to all the enterprise information. With this, each employee is able to find whatever they need. It could be policies, access to the right experts, procedures for completing certain tasks, etc.
Intranet portals eliminate the usually draining forth and back exchanges via emails, calls, or chats that are the norm with traditional methods of accessing enterprise information.
Qualities of a great intelligent enterprise search solution
A good enterprise search system that is powered by AI should have the capability to search seamlessly through all the organization’s information points, including apps. It should have as many connectors as possible, enabling users to find what they need by looking for it in multiple sources.
To achieve this, the following qualities are critical:
- Document summary: The search solution should have powerful generative AI capabilities that summarize documents in microseconds to return the most relevant answers.
- Chat: The system should incorporate a chat function that facilitates follow-up discussions. In other words, it should not be as plain as is the case with traditional enterprise search solutions.
- Security: Each user should only see information that the organization permits them to see. The enterprise search system must never give sensitive information to the wrong users.
- Information traceability: This is all about users being able to know with certainty where the answers they get are coming from. The company’s CRM tool, sales emails, support tickets, policy document, minutes of meetings? Whichever the source, the system should give the user a clear reference that they can follow through and reach the source. This enhances transparency and gives confidence to the users that the information they are relying on is credible and not some hallucination!
Conclusion
Intelligent enterprise search presents organizations with the opportunity to connect employees and stakeholders with real-time answers to their needs.
This is the definitive solution to the big challenge of information fragmentation that so many organizations struggle with. Forward-looking companies should not struggle with this challenge anymore in the age of artificial intelligence.
AI-powered search literally puts the power of organizational information right in the hands of the users that need it so much: employees, stakeholders, and customers. Unlock this power with intelligent enterprise search and transform the organization’s information into an agent of excellence.