8 April 2008
London-based companies are "poor"...
...at providing effective information-search tools, despite 88% having an intranet.
According to a study by research firm, Sinequa, a majority of London firms are hampered by primitive search engines.
From interviews conducted with 200 City workers during March, more than half (59%) of the workers questioned said the tools their employers provided for searching their own information systems were either "poor" or "very poor".
"Time consuming and frustrating" searches
Although a majority (88%) of the London-based companies questioned had invested in an intranet, it seems they were/are using inappropriate technology for information sharing. (This includes email and shared servers.)
Of the companies polled, only 8% had a dedicated tool for searching for information across the company using search terms.
46% said not having access to the right information had impaired their performance on as many as 10 occasions in the past month.
Furthermore, 1 in 3 said that no best practices for sharing information had been put in place, making searching for information "time consuming and frustrating". A further 46% said that information searches within their organization were "generic and not comprehensive".
Watson Wyatt's global intranet and portal leader, Michael Rudnick (pictured, left), told the Hub earlier this year, that "Embracing the technology with proper planning, guidelines and change management for its use are effective approaches to ensuring success." Hear more of his intranet advice via the Hub's editorial board Q&A page.
Racking up the lost hours
What the survey results imply is that productivity is likely to be less than it potentially could be, had companies been using more effective internal search engines. Indeed, the research revealed that 46% said not having access to the right information had impaired their performance on as many as 10 occasions in the past month.
What's more, finding the information to support the development of a business-critical document takes 2 to 3 hours on average, according to 40% of the survey respondents, and a quarter said it could take 3 hours or longer.
Key benefits from search improvements
But if companies invested more on communication and information-sharing tools, in the right areas, would the time taken be substantially less?
Unsurprisingly, the research found that 77% of employees felt that they and their company would benefit from being to search and access relevant information in a timely manner from across the business. Key benefits that respondents outlined included:
- increased productivity (42%);
- the ability to make more autonomous decisions (51%); and
- gain more insight into the business (24%).
Pressure to structure data
Colin Hadden, country manager at Sinequa, said "The likes of Google and Yahoo! mean that employees are au fait with using search tools in order to search, access and connect with huge volumes of data to make informed purchasing decisions or plan a holiday in their personal lives."
A large void exists between what they can do as consumers and what they can do as employees. This gap causes employee frustration.
He continued "However, at present a large void exists between what they can do as consumers and what they can do as employees. This gap causes employee frustration, limits the value of corporate information and ultimately impacts on business success."
Hadden also told IT Pro yesterday "There's increased pressure on companies to do something about the unstructured data they're continually creating and storing. Most companies have a broad set of data residing in content management systems, email, applications and fileshares. But enterprise search has not been a business priority."
See Michael in action
If you want to find out how to improve your company intranet, Rudnick will be leading Melcrum's Intranet 2.0 and Portal Makeover Forum, in May at
Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa,
Walt Disney World®, Florida.
Hub members receive a 15% discount on the full price – call us now to register: 866.MELCRUM or 312.379.6500. Or email Jason Blackwell now for more details.
Have your say
Are employees at your organization similarly frustrated? Have you tried to step up search efforts, in vain? Need help persuading the right people to invest in more advanced information search technology?
And discuss intranet issues further with other comms practitioners by joining the Internal Comms Hub members' group on the Communicators' Network.
Other recommendations:
Quick and cost-effective ways to overhaul your intranet
How to apply knowledge management
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