Squander SharePoint search, or save tens of thousands

March 20, 2012 - PRLog -- A stumbling block in SharePoint is that it provides search functionality out-of-the-box.  This leads to the illusion that SharePoint search is ready to go.  It is not, and because of this confusion many companies that use SharePoint have put next to no time in configuring and setting up search.  They do not custom tailor it for their unique business objectives and culture.  They end up having an ineffectual search, a search that is only used a handful of times before it is abandoned.  It becomes just another step in the process of not finding the information being looked for.

Your people need to be able to quickly find what they are looking for.  They should not have to go to ten different places to find it, if they find it at all. It should not matter whether it is in PeopleSoft, Siebel, SAP, their inboxes, a project site, or what-have-you.  They need to find the right information.  Their results should be in the first page the search engine returns.  And when they click something it should teach the search engine that “hey, this result fits these words in the search box.”   We want all this, and we want it to be secured.  Secured so that people, even internal to your company, can only see what they have access to.  What they do not have access to should not even show up in the results page.

This is not too much to ask.  This technology does exist.  Shouldn’t we have the same standards for search in our offices that we have for search in our personal lives?  Would you use Google if it didn’t provide the information you were looking for?  SharePoint search can be done right, but don’t buy into the hype that this is “easy,” “simple,” or any such thing.  That orientation will not get you the results you are looking for.

The right effort and expertise pays off in real and demonstrable ROI.   An average employee spends over 9 hours each week searching for information.  They go through files, through sites, their inbox, their computer, they ping other employees, and on and on.  About 40% of the time they do not find the information they are looking for and have to redo the work.  They spend about six hours each week recreating work that they cannot find.  This is a waste.  Quick math shows this as about 750 wasted hours per employee per year.  This lost productivity adds up fast and your business finds itself out hundreds of thousands of dollars with just a moderately sized staff.  Ask yourself; is it worthwhile to invest in a custom-tailored enterprise search experience?  We think it is.

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SharePoint consulting and development firm. Sabel Collaborations is headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. It focuses on key areas of corporate IT such as team collaboration, business process improvement, document automation, regulatory compliance and portal development. They can be found online at http://sabelcollab.com .