Cost Common Sense: Why Your Search System Just Keeps Getting More and More Expensive

March 21, 2016

I read “4 Unseen Expenses with In-House IT Departments.” The information in the write up is helpful. Too bad more specialists keep the lid on cost data. In the write up, there are four “unseen expenses” which almost guarantee that enterprise search systems will, like the Entergizer bunny, keep going and going. What are the costs? Here are the four from the write up:

  1. Staffing costs
  2. Downtime costs
  3. Ineffective IT support costs
  4. Cost of replacement.

I would mention several others, but I don’t want to exhaust my list of the costs associated with an enterprise search system. (Mine are split into planning or pre acquisition costs, procurement costs, initial installation costs, first year costs, and subsequent year costs. Four, as you may conclude, gentle reader, only spot the iceberg of money that looms through the fog of disbelief.

Image result for energizer bunny

The Energizer bunny of cost overruns, enterprise search.

My additions:

  • The costs of operating legacy systems. As I have pointed out in previous books and articles, Fortune 1000 firms have a minimum of five or more enterprise search systems in operation
  • The costs of legal fees related to adjudications with the vendor or vendors for services related to the enterprise search system
  • The costs of infrastructure surprises; for example, why is this system so slow to add new and changed content? Answer: We need more hardware, bandwidth, storage, memory, etc.

Enterprise search, after 50 years, is a chief financial officer’s bane in many organizations.

Stephen E Arnold, March 21, 2015

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