Managing Content for Added Value
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it."—Samuel Johnson
There are many drivers that require companies to manage knowledge more effectively—the incredible rate at which electronic data is reproduced and stored, the increasing role of intranets for collaborative workgroups, and organizations working to meet regulatory compliance. Enterprise search has been thrust to the forefront as a strategic business application by all of these factors and many more. Organizations now understand that enterprise search is more than a pedestrian business application—it provides a strategic business function by supporting knowledge workers and managing intellectual property. When viewed in this light, organizations tend to move away from viewing search applications as a set of features and cast an eye toward the overall value of unlocking stored knowledge and protecting intellectual property.
For example, can the application successfully negotiate access to content stores without professional services, keeping investment costs down while driving access to information up? Will the application apply techniques that classify and organize results and embed the search function behind the scenes in operational applications? Does the application deploy quickly, with security, and make users more productive? Does the application add value to the IT ecosystem by using existing assets that leverage identity, authentication and authorization to provide secure information access? For those organizations that view search as a critical function, the answers to these questions quickly identify the appropriate application required to support knowledge management as a strategic asset.
PRTM: Search is a Critical Business Asset
PRTM (www.prtm.com) is an example of an organization that views search as the most effective way to manage intellectual property. Founded in 1976, PRTM is recognized internationally as a leading management consultancy, and ranked as one of the "50 Largest Consulting Companies in the World" by Consulting News. PRTM is noted for its leadership in product development and supply chain management and is highly valued for a focus on results, developing and executing strategies through improvements in best practices, IT-enablement and core business processes.
In 2004, PRTM launched a knowledge management initiative to better control its intellectual property. Steve Jackson, PRTM's CIO, recognized that both intellectual property and effective search are key business assets, and both are equally essential for effective knowledge management—"when intellectual property is important, having an effective search engine is absolutely essential," says Jackson. PRTM standardized on Microsoft SharePoint as an information management platform, and selected Coveo Enterprise Search for SharePoint (CESS) as the added-value complementary search application. PRTM found that other search applications did not meet their key requirements.
PRTM downloaded the search application and had it up and running in a matter of hours. This was a key benefit to PRTM because, according to Jackson, "one of our guiding principles is that if it is difficult to implement it will be difficult to maintain." During the initial pilot, the search application indexed more than 300,000 documents on file servers and websites in PRTM's east and west coast offices. Today, PRTM is managing almost 400,000 documents and 140 SharePoint sites. The system is available to 400 users across the globe, and handles approximately 3,500 user queries per month.
Benefits and Lessons Learned
The ability of the search tool to seamlessly work over a WAN and easily index file shares are key requirements for PRTM. Support and minimal maintenance requirements are also important to PRTM. During the trial, the system uncovered misfiled and unsecured documents, enabling PRTM to improve document security and adhere to their corporate compliance policies. Finally, as far as user acceptance, Jackson reports, "No news is good news as far as our users are concerned. Our users let us know when something doesn't work."
Coveo Enterprise Search delivers secure, unified search across all documents and multi-media files located in file systems, databases, enterprise applications, email servers, intranets, and web sites. An award-winning product, and based on industry standard .Net and ASP technologies, Coveo Enterprise Search delivers value with out-of-the-box security for regulatory compliance, unparalleled accuracy based on file monitoring, de-duplication, concept extraction and summarization, and a deployment cycle of less than 24 hours. Coveo's enterprise clients include AAA, AMN Healthcare, Eli Lilly, Fannie Mae, International Paper, Hewlett Packard, Lockheed Martin, NATO, NASA, AC Nielsen, and Verizon. For additional information, please visit
www.coveo.com or contact us at 800.635.5476.