How Does Enterprise Search Intersect with Knowledge Management? 

Today’s enterprise tech stack is a complex network of applications and data, creating a significant challenge for businesses striving to maintain efficiency and productivity. Okta’s 2024 Businesses at Work report reveals that companies now manage an average of 93 apps, with large organizations handling as many as 231. According to Gartner, the average desk worker juggles 11 different apps daily, up from just 6 in 2019. Amid this complexity, a staggering 60-73% of collected data remains underutilized because employees simply can’t find it.

The sheer volume of applications and data repositories can create a fragmented information landscape, making it difficult for employees to find the certified, trusted information they need. This inefficiency hinders productivity, collaboration, and accuracy in work – and prevents organizations from fully leveraging the valuable data they collect.

To address these challenges, organizations need a unified search experience that delivers certified, trusted knowledge to employees. This is best achieved in knowledge management platforms that combine the power of generative AI, content collaboration tools, and Enterprise Search integrations.

What is Enterprise Search and Why Enterprise Search Platforms Alone Can’t Solve All Problems

Enterprise search enables employees to search once and get results for all information they can access across an organization’s various data repositories, such as document libraries, intranets, databases, and more. This ensures employees can quickly find the necessary information without switching between multiple platforms.

What Does Enterprise Search Do?

Enterprise Search aggregates data from disparate sources and presents it in a unified manner, making information retrieval efficient and seamless.

How Enterprise Search Works

Enterprise Search integrates with various data repositories and applies AI-driven algorithms to deliver precise search results. Users can search once and get results from all connected sources, ensuring a streamlined search experience free of operational friction.

Challenges of Standalone Enterprise Search Platforms

While enterprise search technology offers significant benefits in terms of information retrieval and accessibility, platforms that focus solely on Enterprise Search have inherent limitations. These limitations can hinder their effectiveness and scalability within organizations.

The challenges with these platforms are:

• They rely on pulling in content from other systems and often don’t provide the flexibility to create and review content essential to many teams, especially those in customer support functions.
• They lack robust curation capabilities that enable admins and moderators to build knowledge experiences around essential content areas.
• They are expansive in terms of what they bring into search and AI results and risk pulling in content that isn’t vetted or accurate, presenting scalability issues.
• They lack the socialization and engagement capabilities essential to fostering a culture of knowledge engagement and collaboration.

Why Integrating Enterprise Search Technology into KM Platforms is the Best Pathway to Success

To truly solve the problems of the modern workforce, essential knowledge management capabilities – such as content authoring, moderation, curation, socialization, and collaboration features – cannot be left out. Combining those features with generative AI and Enterprise Search integrations creates a fully integrated knowledge management program that enables:

• Scale across the enterprise: Expand the reach and impact of knowledge with seamless Enterprise Search integrations that eliminate the burden of curation, migration, and provisioning.
• Optimized efficiency with AI search: Eliminate context switching with a unified AI search engine. Ask once and get direct answers across certified, curated company knowledge, regardless of where it lives.
• Collaborative, strategic outcomes: Build a culture of operational excellence with robust engagement and socialization tools that draw from enterprise-wide expertise and data.

What are the Benefits of Enterprise Search?

Enterprise search significantly enhances productivity, efficiency, and collaboration by providing quick access to all relevant information across an organization’s data repositories. It reduces employees’ time searching for information, minimizes context switching, and ensures they can access accurate, vetted information. This leads to better decision-making and operational efficiency. Bloomfire customer data has shown that companies utilizing this comprehensive suite of solutions amplify the output of their workforce by 10%.

Critical Enterprise Search Integration Capabilities for KM

When looking for a KM platform with enterprise search integrations, the following capabilities are ideal for maximizing benefits:

Unified Search: With Enterprise Search, users can leverage a single AI-powered search engine to retrieve instant answers from connected repositories like SharePoint, MS Teams, OneDrive, Google Drive, Box, and more. Whether content is published directly in a KM platform or resides in a connected repository, users can find the best answers without switching platforms.

Curated Syncs: Streamline content management with automated, configurable settings for folders, file types, and metadata. This feature allows your Enterprise Search integrations to be selective in how they bring in content, preventing the inclusion of redundant, outdated, and trivial (ROT) information. Deep indexing ensures comprehensive searchability; customizable rules help organize data to meet your organization’s needs.

Secure Access: Enterprise-grade solutions ensure that file permissions are mirrored from source repositories via SCIM, maintaining strict governance over information access. If a user lacks access to a file in its source location, it will not appear in their search results.

Integrated Analytics: Built-in reporting tools provide insights into how synced content drives engagement. Track views and understand when synced content contributes to answers, enabling data-driven decision-making.

Why Fully Integrated Knowledge Management Systems Are Important for Your Organization

If you’re looking for a KM or ES solution, you should look for one that combines the best of both to equip your employees with tools fit for the workforce of the future.

Enterprise search is important because it enhances the accessibility and usability of an organization’s vast knowledge resources. By integrating enterprise search with a knowledge management platform, Bloomfire addresses the critical challenges enterprises face. These integrations emphasize the importance of creating a certified knowledge base that provides trusted answers to employees, empowering organizations to unlock their full potential and drive growth and innovation.

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About the Author

Sanjay Jain

One of several technology experts at Bloomfire, Sanjay and his team are responsible for the development of our platform and for advancing capabilities to better allow your teams to better collect, curate, and cleanse their content and transform your data into knowledge that is certified, actionable, and ready for AI.