Quarter of UK oganisations waste more than £ 2.5M annually searching for information

London & San Francisco, March 5, 2009 -- Recommind, the leader in search-powered information risk management (IRM) software, today released the results of its recent research into the information access and search habits of UK organisations*.  With businesses capable of searching just 50 percent of the information that their employees need for their daily tasks, the findings indicate that legacy, one-size-fits-all ‘Enterprise Search 1.0’ systems are no longer suitable for modern enterprises that require instant, automated and highly relevant access to all kinds of information – from documents and email to fellow colleagues’ expertise and knowledge to project-specific information. 

The impact on businesses from this technology failure includes staff spending many hours searching fruitlessly for the information they need to do their daily jobs – with approximately a quarter of those surveyed admitting that employees typically spend more than half a day a week on this task.  For a company with 1,000 employees, this equates to upwards of £50,000 worth of lost time a week or £2,600,000 a year**.

“Organisations are wasting a staggering sum of money because they have invested in technology that no longer meets their current needs, and with the current global recession forcing businesses the world over to maximise productivity and efficiency, this is simply unacceptable,” said Simon Price, European director at Recommind.  ‘Enterprise Search 1.0’ is dead – it’s not up to finding even basic information in context, let alone empowering individuals to share knowledge and expertise in an easy and convenient way.  Information is increasingly recognised as the most valuable business currency – but with the sheer volume plaguing organisations today, it can actually create major challenges for companies if employees are struggling to locate the information they need for their jobs.  Not only does it impact the task in hand, it also means many hours are wasted searching when a more effective solution could do the job in a matter of minutes.”

The independent research, which was carried out by Vanson Bourne, assessed the current information capabilities and needs of 170 UK organisations with more than 1,000 employees operating in the financial services, manufacturing, retail, healthcare and public sectors.  Although all firms surveyed had some form of enterprise search technology in place, the research found that most companies across all sectors were dissatisfied with some aspects of their current solution which were found to be failing even where relatively simple information retrieval from typical repositories is concerned. 

Of those surveyed, 94 percent wanted the ability to search documents such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, with 86 percent also wanting to be able to search their own email.  However, despite the relatively straightforward nature of these searches, employees at one in five organisations are not able to find relevant documents, with more than three out of ten unable to find relevant emails. 

“It’s a basic requirement today for organisations to be able to search and find relevant documents and emails,” continued Price.  “When you think about the most common searches employees will perform on a daily basis, the fact that 20 percent still can’t search documents and 30 percent are unable to search emails,  it’s clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with the ‘one size fits all’ approach popularised by a few big enterprise search vendors over the past few years.  And in today’s business climate, such failings simply can’t be tolerated anymore – the most successful businesses must be able to take advantage of all of their knowledge and expertise, providing staff with access to everything they need as quickly as possible.”

When it came to meeting the more sophisticated and diverse needs of today’s businesses, such as enabling staff to quickly find the person with the most relevant experience for a certain project, task or question, or securely searching both internal and external data sources simultaneously to find the most pertinent information, ‘Enterprise Search 1.0’ solutions were even less effective.  Just 34 percent of organisations were able to search external sources whereas employees at twice as many firms (70 percent) needed access to this kind of information for their jobs.  When asked about access to all information related to particular projects, 79 percent wanted their staff to be able to find this data, but just 52 percent provided them with the means to do so.

“With the massive amount of data passing through today’s businesses, it’s becoming increasingly hard for employees to find what they need,” said Sarah Burnett, senior research analyst at Butler Group.  “What’s clear from this research and from our own analysis is that search solutions have to deliver against increasingly sophisticated information needs.  It’s one thing to provide access to information, but another matter altogether to deliver relevant and meaningful content to enable information workers to do their jobs.  Furthermore, it’s no longer just about finding relevant documents and emails – there’s so much more information from external data to fellow colleagues’ knowledge and expertise, and it’s becoming increasingly important for businesses to be able to capitalise on all of this information, as this is exactly where they will start to see the benefits and return on investment.”

“Based on our own experiences, these results are not surprising,” said Duncan Ogilvy, knowledge management partner at Mills & Reeve, one of the UK’s leading full-service law firms and a Recommind customer.  “For any business to be successful, it’s essential to provide employees with the tools they need to do their jobs.  After evaluating a number of solutions on the market today, it quickly became clear that many solutions are just too basic and fail to meet these needs.  Investing in the right technology is a key part of this and if staff are able to quickly, easily and accurately access all the information they need, the productivity gains and cost savings can be tremendous.”

When broken down by sector, healthcare organisations were better able to meet the basic information needs of their employees than other public sector and financial firms.  However, when assessing time spent looking for this data, healthcare employees are taking significantly longer than their counterparts in other industries, again indicating that ‘Enterprise Search 1.0’ solutions are failing to meet the needs of workers and the enterprises that rely on their collective knowledge to successfully compete.

Further findings of the research include:

• Of the sectors surveyed, all had trouble searching more sophisticated resources – in healthcare, 71 percent of respondents wanted to be able to find information from external sources, but just 23 percent could.   For public sector, the figures are 87 and 33 percent respectively, and for financial firms, 50 and 25 percent
• All sectors struggled with finding all information related to a particular project – just 35 percent of healthcare organisations were able to, and financial and public sector fared slightly better with 50 and 47 percent respectively
• Although 94 percent of healthcare organisations provide staff with the ability to search email, healthcare workers spend the most time searching for information – one in 10 spend more than eight hours or one full working day per week
• In contrast, just 63 percent of workers in other public sector organisations can search their email, with the figure standing at 68 for financial firms
• Staff at 19 percent of public sector organisations, and 18 percent of financial firms spend half a day or more looking for the data they need for their jobs

“On a basic level, this survey showed that healthcare organisations seem to be much better prepared to meet the information needs of their employees than other sectors,” continued Price.  “But, there’s no doubt that those working in healthcare are feeling the same frustration as their counterparts in financial firms and other public sector organisations.  It’s no longer enough to just be able to search documents and email – organisations today are faced with a multitude of information in different formats and in different locations which must be presented in several ways.  The key is to invest in solutions that are capable of searching and identifying the most relevant information from any source in all sectors – in this way, employees will be able to quickly and easily find what they need at the touch of a button, saving valuable time, and boosting productivity and efficiency while lowering costs.  Failure to do so could result in the continued loss of millions of pounds of time for every UK organisation.”

*Survey of CIOs and IT directors at 170 UK organisations with more than 1,000 employees conducted by Vanson Bourne in December 2008.

** Based on the Government’s Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings which calculates median weekly pay for full time employees - http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285.