Search Vendors Try New Sales Hooks
June 25, 2010
Forget the surveys that companies run to make clear the problems in information access. Anyone who looks for information today knows that pinpointing information to answer a business question is not exactly bulletproof. Recommind, once a vendor anchored in the legal market, stretched its wings into the enterprise. My recollection is that some of the company’s technology reminded me of Autonomy’s original approach. Now Recommind seems to be pushing into a different space, one that combines indexing, risk management, some MBA speak, and a dash of legal lingo. Navigate to “Disconnect Between Legal and IT Getting Worse, Recommind Survey Reveals.”
In my experience, information technology organizations are definitely disconnected from most of the corporate functions. I don’t think IT is at fault. IT departments are trying to protect themselves from what I call “requests from the clueless.” I know business managers are under pressure. CFOs are wild eyed in their efforts to cut costs and maximize returns. The top executives are scrambling to find ways to buy their private island, get a new BMW, and create a life without BP scale risks, bloggers, and 20somethings who want to make their bones on the corpses of today’s market leaders. Many managers see a demo or chat with pals at the country club and come to the office on Monday with requests that are essentially impossible for an IT department to meet with available resources.
What’s the Recommind survey purport to tell me? IT and legal eagles are operating on different wave lengths. I need a survey to tell me this. I don’t even operate on the same wave length as my two attorneys and I pay these guys to try and help me. For me, here’s a quote that reveals more about client management and vendors than about IT departments:
At a time when e-Discovery and regulatory issues are gaining momentum, these results don’t exactly instill confidence across the enterprise.
Here’s my view of the situation:
- Certain vendors of search technology have to find a way to make sales to keep the money pipe full. The options are market like the devil or go to Satans’ spawn and get more funding. Which path would you take? I vote for marketing. I think these types of surveys are marketing efforts and when the results are released, I know the data are viewed by the survey sponsor as a way to generate sales leads.
- Obviously plain vanilla search is not a hot ticket. I think I was one of the first people to explain that search was dead in my Searcher article for Barbara Quint four or five years ago. No search vendor is going to bridge the gap between IT and the many over stressed units in an organization. Successful vendors find ways to solve problems, not tackle the management tensions that are human centric organizational issues.
- The new lingo does not convince me that content processing software can address deeper issues with management and governance.
You may have a different view, so read the survey results. Many search vendors have marketed themselves into a corner. Now organizations have to find solutions to information access problems. I don’t think there is much margin for error. Sure, some assert the economy is improving. That’s wonderful. But the glory days of search marketing are behind us, and I think more than catch phrases, house surveys, sponsored white papers, and fawning azure chip consultants will be needed.
Here’s my checklist for starters:
- Demonstrations that solve a problem
- Clear statements of what a findability-centric software system can and cannot do
- Avoidance of MBA crazy talk, jargon, unsupported assertions, and faux case analyses
- Partnerships that give a prospect confidence that the system can be made to work at a reasonable cost in a reasonable period of time
- Focus on solutions. Search and content processing vendors are not blue chip management consultants, never will be and probably cannot afford the ministrations of Bain, Booz, Boston Consulting, or McKinsey and, therefore, have little first hand information of what is required to tackle management challenges in an organizations.
Many search vendors are scrambling for a new sales hook. What approach will work? No clue have I.
Stephen E Arnold, June 25, 2010
Freebie
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
