13.05.2024 | Blog Increased efficiency and cost savings: Why companies need enterprise search software

Enterprise search software is a smart solution that helps companies to give their employees rapid access to relevant information, even when it's spread across a diverse range of systems and data sources. Sounds interesting, some might think, but what does the acquisition of yet another IT tool have to do with business success?

What effects does enterprise search software have on the economic success of companies?

Making the right information easily accessible to every employee at the right time and enabling meaningful further work with the data and information is a major challenge for any information-driven company. AI-based enterprise search software solves precisely this task and helps companies to be economically successful in several ways. This results in the following effects:

• Cost savings through faster access to information: With a centralized search solution, employees can quickly find company knowledge they need from millions of documents without having to search for a long time. This saves time, especially in departments where quick problem solving is essential such as customer service or helpdesk – but also for all employees who receive, process, use and create information daily.
   
• Efficient information searches improve productivity: When employees have the essential data quickly to hand, they utilize existing knowledge, build on it and do not reinvent the wheel for the umpteenth time. This avoids the repetitive collection, consolidation and refinement of information. This is of great importance not only for knowledge-intensive industries and departments with large amounts of information, such as research and development.
   
• More quality through precise search results: Employees receive accurate and complete information thanks to intelligent algorithms. Based on this, better decisions can be made - or conversely: costly wrong decisions can be avoided.
   
• Significant increase in efficiency through generative AI in combination with intelligent search: Smart enterprise search software not only helps to find documents such as logs, reports, and analyses, and to quickly search their content. It can also process these documents using integrated generative AI. For example, summaries with key statements can be created from the documents, facts can be aggregated, meeting recordings can be transcribed and action items can be derived. Employees can "fine-tune" AI-generated drafts instead of starting from scratch. Herein lies a huge potential for additional efficiency.

Calculations to increase efficiency 

How can the effects of intelligent search be substantiated with figures? Large consultancies estimate that information workers spend an average of 9 hours a week on research. Of course, this depends on the type of activity and must be considered individually. Consultancy firms estimate that up to 6 hours per week can be saved by using an intelligent search engine. Even if that number sounds exaggerated and perhaps only applies to "power users" and only to certain projects, considering only to save 1/3 to 1/2 of this time, you still end up with very high amounts, as the following example shows.

Example ROI calculation (full costs)

• 1,000 employees 
• 40 working weeks/year 
• Savings per employee 4 hours per week 
• Only the time actually used productively is included in the calculation, conservatively 2 hours per week
• Corresponds to 80,000 working hours per year, valued at an average of 72€/h 
• With 2 hours of research work per week => annual savings: €5,760,000 
• With 1 hour of research per week => annual savings: €2,880,000

Even with time savings of 10 minutes per week and only 100 employees, the savings potential is higher than the implementation costs, which corresponds to an ROI of less than one year.

Voices from companies on the savings potential of enterprise search software

Not all companies carry out exact measurements - who has the time for that? But here are some statements from IntraFind customers about the cost-effectiveness and ROI of iFinder software:

• "Experienced employees on the service hotline can effectively find what they are looking for up to 11 (!) times faster with the iFinder. Studies with new and inexperienced employees show even more positive results." (Manufacturing industry)
   
• "Time saving per year per person on average: 12 days - significantly higher for specialized tasks such as hotline!" (Financial institution)
  
  
• "Some "power users" have saved up to 60% (!) of their working time since the introduction of the comprehensive search for product data management." (Automotive supply industry)
  
  
• "Initially, ROI calculations were taken very seriously, but this was quickly abandoned. The calculation was very simple: TCO (total cost of ownership)* calculated over 5 years, i.e. license plus maintenance plus training/workshops and additional implementation services due to individual requirements. The amount was then divided by 60 months and allocated to the users. The result: just over 80cts/user and month. So, if you save just 1 minute a week, the investment has already paid off. As a result, any further consideration of the economic viability was discontinued.(Manufacturing industry)

*Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) refers to the total costs of a product during its lifecycle. When considering the TCO, it is not only the costs of the original purchase that count, but also the total costs of the product or service over the entire period of use.

Much more than just saving time - minimizing business risks and optimizing processes

In addition to cost savings through faster access to company information, enterprise search can minimize business risks, for example with GDPR and compliance analyses of documents or compliance with information governance through smart, AI-based data management. Further added value results from the acceleration of text-based processes through automation, for example for topic-based email forwarding from general mailboxes, application processing or text summaries. Not to be underestimated are "soft" factors such as more satisfied customers and employees.

Conclusion

To get the most out of existing company information and utilize it profitably for the company's success, it is worth introducing enterprise search software - quickly and demonstrably – because this investment pays for itself quickly. Organizations should also think about what information employees are looking for, why they are looking for it and what happens if they cannot find it. This makes it easier to assess the benefits. Relieve your employees of repetitive routine tasks by using an enterprise search with generative AI for those tasks that really require the expertise of your cost-intensive specialists.