Here’s Why Your Business Needs Enterprise Search Software

Nothing is more annoying than searching for something you once saw on the web, right? Despite the advancements in search engines and SEO practices, sometimes your query just isn’t quite on point. For example, you might have enjoyed a hilarious cat meme but with several hundred variations of it online, you would have to spend hours to find the same one! (Don’t believe us? Just search for “cat meme” on Google – wait, don’t do that because you might not come back here for another hour!)

Coming back to the point, certain processes within enterprises need data or information instantly. Hence, they rely on “enterprise search” which leverages software applications to search for information across enterprise databases and online sources. This tool enables authorized users to index, search, identify and view specific content, whether it is located in the enterprise system or a public database.
Join us to know all about Enterprise Search Software, its working, history, benefits, importance, future and more!
 

What Is Enterprise Search Software?

In today’s data-driven age, enterprises are running into a new issue – accessing the right files from the massive volumes of data they store. In fact, in 2017, Gartner created a new enterprise search category called “Insight Engines” which could help businesses access information interactively by ingesting, organizing and analyzing data. Forrester, another prominent analyst firm, defined this new category as “Cognitive Search.” It goes to show that enterprise search is innovating rapidly – and for good reason! #TooMuchData

This challenge led to the development of Enterprise Search Software; tools that facilitated users with the organized retrieval of stored data, whether it is internal or external. These tools organize and clean up accessible data, allowing users to securely search through databases, documents, applications, webpages, and the Internet. Hence, Enterprise Search Software is beneficial for users in a variety of roles as it can swiftly get information from diverse databases and sources.

Although it is a fairly new concept, a lot was happening in the field of enterprise search – let’s explore!
 

Evolution And Origins Of Enterprise Search

The current face of Enterprise Search Software was a result of several innovations. Here’s a brief look at the timeline:

• Early Days

  The groundwork for enterprise search engines was laid at the Royal Society Scientific Information Conference in 1948. Participants and leaders at the time realized that organizing the massive amount of data that would be generated in the future would be extremely difficult.

• Pre-1970

  In 1967, the ORBIT online search service was launched, which allowed researchers to quickly search through databases to find the most relevant research literature.

• Pre-1990s

  In 1970, IBM launched its STAIRS (Storage And Information Retrieval System) storage, allowing users to search indexed text files. Then, in 1984, the Muscat search tool was rolled out to the public which took a probabilistic approach to information retrieval. IBM’s STAIRS continued to develop and were the basis for early desktop-based Enterprise Search Software when computers started becoming increasingly prevalent in the workplace.

• 1990s

  The adoption of computers both at home and in the office rapidly increased the demand for better search tools in the 1990s. Fortunately, in 1991, the World Wide Web went public, leading to dedicated online search solutions being developed. They included tools such as FAST Search and Transfer.

• Post-2000s

  In the modern era, Enterprise Search solutions continued to evolve into more advanced, robust tools. They grew in complexity as more data became accessible through the Internet, leading to calls for better search algorithms. Moreover, enterprise search tools were being rapidly integrated into enterprise software, such as content management tools and data storage platforms.

Today, Enterprise Search Software is critical for nearly every business function. Hence, everyone can benefit from knowing how it works – read on!
 

How Does An Enterprise Search Software Work?

Enterprise Search Software essentially provides search-as-a-service capabilities, allowing businesses to securely connect their users with sensitive business data as well as public information. However, the tool also enables businesses to control the source of data such as internal product catalogs and marketing content to external sources such as websites and third-party content hosting applications.

This tool can be used by various teams and managers to retrieve relevant information quickly from all the data that an organization stores. Enterprise Search Software can streamline the process of querying for digital content as well as on-premises data. For example, your customer service teams might need instant access to on-premises sensitive customer data and online product catalogs – this tool offers them a centralized search bar for both.

Moreover, this tool includes search results from both structured data (that is stored in internal databases) and unstructured data (documents, PDFs, images, etc. from the web). To make the process easier, it offers advanced filters and intelligent search options (such as autocomplete, finding similar files, ranking by relevance, etc.) to deliver the right information to users in seconds!
 

Searching For The Working Of Enterprise Search Software?

Well, if you’re looking to understand how this tool manages to identify, classify and deliver specific documents from a sea of information, you’re in the right place! Here’s how it all works:
 

• Content Processing

  Content from various sources comes in a variety of formats and types, such as hyperlinks, documents, images or plain text. In order to improve recall during the search, the incoming data is processed via content processing into plain text tags. It is also common to process these tags into lowercase to provide a case-insensitive search.

• Indexing

  The resulting text tags are saved in an index that is designed to facilitate quick searches without loading the actual file being searched for. You can think of the index as a dictionary of all the distinct words found in the enterprise corpus and the details about the term frequency and ranking. For example, if you’re looking for a file with the word “TechDogs”, the index will display all files with that term, with the one having the highest frequency on top.

• Search Query Processing

  The user then makes a query to the system via a web application or software dashboard. The user's keywords and navigational choices are included in this. For any Enterprise Search Software to actually search for pertinent files, it needs this user input.

• Search Result Matching

  The search system then compares the processed query to the indexed tags and returns results referencing to the files that match the input. While some systems can display the document exactly as it was indexed, others might require additional filters, such as time frame or file type.

Seems pretty easy when you know the steps involved, right? However, if it is so simple then why are businesses growing increasingly concerned about enterprise search? To find out the answer, head on to the next section!
 

What Is The Need For Enterprise Search Software?

Enterprise search, sometimes called information retrieval, is a critical technological solution for businesses. It aids in data management, collaboration and business intelligence, among other significant aspects of running an enterprise. Here’s why it’s so important in the modern era:

Imagine being on hold with customer support for over ten minutes because they’re still locating your purchase details – that’s simply unacceptable in today’s world, right? Hence, customer service, support and other customer-facing teams must find the relevant data quickly. Moreover, to quickly discover the most relevant data that exists across massive enterprise databases and other sources, a single interface improves proficiency and productivity.

With more data being generated today than ever before, businesses need a tool to help them categorize, assess or move files to their correct destinations. The technology also needs to scale across millions of documents, thousands of sources and hundreds of data types – yes, Enterprise Search Software can help with that.

Moreover, the search function covers unstructured, semi-structured and structured content which spans documents, PDFs, manuals, call transcripts, etc. and even files that do not fit into defined categories. Machine Learning algorithms are enabling these tools to create a unified index so that search results are more relevant, quick and consistent.

We bet you’re convinced about the importance of having this nifty tool in your business toolkit – if not, scroll a bit further; we’re sure you’ll be convinced by the end of the article!
 

What’s The Future Of Enterprise Search Software?

 
There’s no need to split up, the future of enterprise search will do all the searching!

Enterprise Search Software will undergo a significant change, thanks in part to Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence technologies. In the near future, intelligent algorithms will return search results based on the context of the user's input. Additionally, the use of voice search in enterprise search tools will rise with the popularity of voice-activated smart devices in workplaces.

Furthermore, we expect neural networks and image recognition tools will be integrated to enable visual search. This is expected as the development of visual search is an essential aspect of search engines. Search tools will incorporate visual algorithms that can recognize and classify billions of objects, products, images, etc. within the search database. How cool does that sound?
 

Conclusion

Enterprise Search Software plays an essential role in every business. Its importance cannot be understated as it enables search capabilities that allow businesses to securely identify specific data across diverse sources. It updates data types and formats from various sources, indexes them and makes it easier to search for information. Most of all, it provides employees and business partners with pertinent, useful information in real time so they can work with increased productivity and efficiency.