The Power of Search

November 13, 2008, Business Management Magazine

Business Management asks Andrew McKay, General Manager and Senior Vice President, Attivio, Inc. and Laurent Simoneau, President and CEO, Coveo about the value, potential and future of enterprise search.

BM. The value of search as a true enterprise platform has been touted for years, yet few organizations have seriously embraced the opportunity. Is this a technology issue, a problem with awareness of the benefits or a lack of understanding regarding how best to go about an implementation project?

AM. Three reasons. The first is, organizations not knowing where all the unstructured content lies in the enterprise and which of it has any value. Content management systems are easy to create and generally departmental. As such, there is little central control, and many stake-holders are involved. In contrast, business intelligence systems are tightly and centrally managed by technical necessity, so enterprise-wide investments are a more natural fit.

Second, enterprise search tries to sell solutions but delivers technology. Business owners are tired of hearing ‘we can do it’, which leads to costly implementation projects. Search as a platform is important, but in today’s economic climate, it must first demonstrate it can deliver solutions easily and efficiently.

Third, search is simply not enough. True insight resides in the integration of structured and unstructured content; bridge technologies do not work. Until this happens, search will always be the ‘poor cousin’ of business intelligence. Read full article