How can enterprise search improve knowledge management in companies?

The pandemic caused the deepest economic disruption since World War II, affecting both supply and demand, causing sales to plummet and waves of bankruptcies. As a consequence, millions of jobs have been destroyed worldwide. Companies have experienced an abrupt and massive loss of knowledge. The loss of staff and the lack of communication by employees working remotely makes it even more difficult to conduct effective knowledge management. Necessary information, which was previously easily accessible, was no longer so quickly accessible. Or – in the worst case – no longer traceable at all.

Why is Enterprise Knowledge Management so important?

Every employee generates an incredible amount of knowledge and data output in the various internal company information systems every day. According to an estimate by the International Data Corporation, the global amount of data will increase from 33 zettabytes in 2018 to 175 zettabytes in 2025, with one zettabyte equal to one billion terabytes. Our experience has shown that even small and medium-sized companies are already producing files in the single-digit million range. For corporations and internationally active organizations, the amount is in the billions. The files are distributed to various heterogeneous information systems such as file servers, intranet and groupware systems, WIKIs and production databases and similar systems. Browsing is usually limited to just one data source, but most companies use an average of around 130 different tools and software to store their data. This includes e-mails, databases, network hard drives, intranets, websites, etc. All of this turns sharing company knowledge into a complex, time-consuming, and extremely expensive process.

Collecting data has never been easier. However, the optimization and contextualization of this data is just as important as its collection, in terms of labor productivity and therefore efficiency, it must be made more and more accessible. Studies show that employees spend an average of 1.8 hours per day – or 9.3 hours per week – searching for and obtaining information. This accounts for around 30% of the working day. Poor knowledge management impairs employees’ decision-making ability and leads to frustration in everyday work. For many companies, this costs them money in the form of lost institutional knowledge and productivity. When employees can’t find the information they need to do their jobs, it’s a huge burden on the entire organization.

An Entprise Search ROI calculator shows how even short search times of several employees add up to thousands of euros a year in expenses.

The relationship between enterprise search and knowledge management

Knowledge management aims to implement the entire company’s internal knowledge in new products, processes, services and business areas. Knowledge in organizations should be made transparent and easily and quickly accessible to the right employees. In this way, an internal and cross-company transfer of “best practices” and process know-how is possible, which results directly in increased productivity and quality.

The application of enterprise search solutions facilitates and improves the process of knowledge management in an organization. By simplifying the ability to search, access, edit, and archive documents from anywhere in the organization, software like searchit can improve employee collaboration and speed up the decision-making process.

searchit is an in-house search engine that searches data from a wide variety of sources – emails, documents, databases, web applications, etc. – at lightning speed and analyzes it using AI-based algorithms and presents it to the user in a structured, clear form. The goal is to reduce the time spent searching and opening documents and repurpose them for more meaningful, productive tasks. This not only increases the overall productivity and efficiency of employees, but also significantly reduces costs.

Enterprise Search for Better Knowledge Management

Enterprise knowledge management is important in every organization. Effective knowledge management helps you not to have to reinvent the wheel again and again. You use the collective experience of your employees to share ideas and drive innovation. Enterprise search solutions not only help you to do better knowledge management, but also take your company to the next level of productivity, collaboration, efficiency and relevance of success.