The AIIM Enterprise Search Study 2014
October 10, 2014
I worked through the 34 page report “Industry Watch. Search and Discovery. Exploiting Knowledge, Minimizing Risk.” The report is based on a sampling of 80,000 AIIM community members. The explanation of the process states:
Graphs throughout the report exclude responses from organizations with less than 10 employees, and suppliers of ECM products and services, taking the number of respondents to 353.
The demographics of the sample were tweaked to discard responses from organizations with fewer than 10 employees. The sample included respondents from North America (67 percent), Europe (18 percent) and “rest of world” (15 percent).
Some History for the Young Reader of Beyond Search
AIIM has roots in imaging (photographic and digital imaging). Years ago I spent an afternoon with Betty Steiger, a then well known executive with a high profile in Washington, DC’s technology community. She explained that the association wanted to reach into the then somewhat new technology for creating digital content. Instead of manually indexing microfilm images, AIIM members would use personal computers. I think we connected in 1982 at her request. My work included commercial online indexing, experiments in full text content online, a CD ROM produced in concert with Predicasts’ and Lotus, and automated indexing processes invented by Howard Flank, a sidekick of mine for a very long time. (Mr. Flank received the first technology achievement award from the old Information Industry Association, now the SIIA).
AIIM had its roots in the world of microfilm. And the roots of microfilm reached back to University Microfilms at the close of World War II. After the war, innovators wanted to take advantage of the marvels of microimaging and silver-based film. The idea was to put lots of content on a new medium so users could “find” answers to questions.
The problem for AIIM (originally the National Micrographics Association) was indexing. As an officer at a company considered in the 1980 as one of the leaders in online and semi automated indexing methods, Ms. Steiger and I had a great deal to discuss.
But AIIM evokes for me:
Microfilm —> Finding issues —> Digital versions of microfilm —> CD ROMs —> On premises online access —> Finding issues.
I find the trajectory of a microfilm leading to pronouncements about enterprise search, content processing, and eDiscovery fascinating. The story of AIIM is a parallel for the challenges the traditional publishing industry (what I call the “dead tree method”) has, like Don Quixote, galloped, galloped into battle with ones and zeros.
Asking a trade association’s membership for insights about electronic information is a convenient idea. What’s wrong with sampling the membership and others in the AIIM database, discarding those who belong to organizations with fewer than 10 employees, and tallying up the survey “votes.” For most of those interested in search, absolutely nothing. And that may be part of the challenge for those who want to get smart about search, findability, and content processing.
Let’s look at three findings from the 30 plus page study. (I have had to trim because the number of comments and notes I wrote when reading the report is too massive for Beyond Search.)
Finding: 25 percent have no advanced or dedicated search tools. 13 percent have five or more [advanced or dedicated search tools].
Talk about good news for vendors of findability solutions. If one thinks about the tens of millions of organizations in the US, one just discards the 10 percent with 10 or fewer employees, and there are apparently quite a large percentage with simplistic tools. (Keep in mind that there are more small businesses than large businesses by a very wide margin. But that untapped market is too expensive for most companies to penetrate with marketing messages.) The study encourages the reader to conclude that a bonanza awaits the marketer who can identify these organizations and convince them to acquire an advanced or dedicated search tool. There is a different view. The research Arnold IT (owner of Beyond Search) has conducted over the last couple of decades suggests that this finding conveys some false optimism. For example, in the organizations and samples with which we have worked, we found almost 90 percent saturation of search. The one on one interviews reveal that many employees were unaware of the search functions available for the organization’s database system or specialized tools like those used for inventory, the engineering department with AutoCAD, or customer support. So, the search systems with advanced features are in fact in most organizations. A survey of a general population reveals a market that is quite different from what the chief financial officer perceives when he or she tallies up the money spent for software that includes a search solution. But the problems of providing one system to handle the engineering department’s drawings and specifications, the legal departments confidential documents, the HR unit’s employee health data, and the Board of Director’s documents revealing certain financial and management topics have to remain in silos. There is, we have found, neither an appetite to gather these data nor the money to figure out how to make images and other types of data searchable from a single system. Far better to use a text oriented metasearch system and dismiss data from proprietary systems, images, videos, mobile messages, etc. We know that most organizations have search systems about which most employees know nothing. When an organization learns about these systems and then gets an estimate to creating one big federated system, the motivation drains from those who write the checks. In our research, senior management perceives aggregation of content as increasing risk and putting an information time bomb under the president’s leather chair.
Finding: 47% feel that universal search and compliant e-discovery is becoming near impossible given the proliferation of cloud share and collaboration apps, personal note systems and mobile devices. 60% are firmly of the view that automated analytics tools are the only way to improve classification and tagging to make their content more findable.
The thrill of an untapped market fades when one considers the use of the word “impossible.” AIIM is correct in identifying the Sisyphean tasks vendors face when pitching “all” information available via a third party system. Not only are the technical problems stretching the wizards at Google, the cost of generating meaningful “unified” search results are a tough nut to crack for intelligence and law enforcement entities. In general, some of these groups have motivation, money, and expertise. Even with these advantages, the hoo hah that many search and eDiscovery vendors pitch is increasing potential customers’ skepticism. The credibility of over-hyped findability solutions is squandered. Therefore, for some vendors, their marketing efforts are making it more difficult for them to close deals and causing a broader push back against solutions that are known by the prospects to be a waste of money. Yikes. How does a trade association help its members with this problem? Well, I have some ideas. But as I recall, Ms. Steiger was not too thrilled to learn about the nitty gritty of shifting from micrographics to digital. Does the same characteristic exist within AIIM today? I don’t know.
Finding: 74% rely on manual processes to manage the downstream legal discovery process. 10% have dedicated legal-case products, and 9% have a discovery workflow as part of ECM.
Now this finding is interesting because it moves AIIM from its roots in imaging documents to legal process. The two are related, but not with content management acting as the lead dog. (The AIIM report also touches the world of records management, which is similar to, not congruent with managing articles and images for a publicly accessible Web page.) The notion that AIIM members know about the systems and methods in use within their organizations’ legal departments is a bridge too far for me. I acknowledge that in a sample there will be some respondents who have direct experience in working with Bates numbers, Federal rules, and the general professional processes of attorneys. When a legal matter arises, the people with a content management system have to deliver information which must not be changed after the deliver to the legal eagles’ nest. A misstep can trigger some exciting remediating actions. This “manual processes” concerns me.
I want you to read the document and do your own critical thinking. I do have some thoughts:
Three Observations
First, search vendors often make sales, based on our research, when one of these conditions is present. [a] A new person has been hired to deal with the dissatisfaction or problems an incumbent search system has created. [b] A senior manager has been exposed to a better way to process information at an industry meeting or by falling under the spell of a sophisticated sales professional. [c] A procurement project begins because money is available (litigation, new product initiative, big information gaffe, merger, etc.) or a mandate descends from a person higher in the company food chain. Then procurement procures. Vendors able to tap into these triggers can make money. Autonomy and Endeca worked the senior management angle.
Second, the incumbent system becomes too expensive to retain or the incumbent system outputs information that is not making the company money. An example: A new CFO figures out how much an Autonomy installation costs Dassault. Bingo. Search becomes an item on a budget review. This means that many organizations will look for less expensive solutions. An example: Dassault buys Exalead. I am yet to be convinced that a content management professional or department is a major player in the high stakes risk/reward world of senior management. Obviously a vendor hooked into an organization’s senior management can make a sale.
Third, the notion that more money will be spent on search next year than this year is part of what I call “the illusion of progress.” In most organization, more money may be spent each year on information access. But that money may not be used to license new systems. The reason is usually related to the cost of indexing more content, spending money to get a crashed system back online, and pumping money into upgrades, third party components, and consultants. The enterprise search and content processing markets are shifting to a business model that makes these companies into mini-Booz Allens and SRIs. The problem is that being a successful professional in a consulting environment is different from what it takes to scan documents, use Google Site Search to make a Web site’s content findable, or accepting the defaults on a cloud search service. Will vendors be as successful in revenue generation as Bain or Boston Consulting? Good question.
Net net: I am happy with the AIIM study. I learn from documents that provide a window into the soul of the respondents. Some respondents have more fully formed views of search and content processing. Nevertheless, I learn from the data, the interpretation, and the comments those commenting on the study offer.
Search and content processing is a fascinating sector. Survey results are equally mesmerizing even if the results are different from data in my possession.
Stephen E Arnold, October 10, 2014
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