Enterprise data volume is projected to be double what it was in 2020 by next year. Smart companies have already recognized the dangers of this tidal wave of data. To get your data under control and truly know what your data holds, you need enterprise search tools that can accurately analyze your data. Unfortunately, many search tools fail to deliver what large businesses truly need.
The Importance of Search Tools
We take search for granted these days. When Google gives you results in a single click and your Windows computers have a robust search function built-in, it’s tempting to believe that there’s nothing to worry about. But while those tools might be good enough for you as an end-user in your day-to-day work, they cannot meet the demands of enterprises today.
Businesses need powerful search tools in order to drive their BI tools. Without search tools, you can’t find the relevant data that you need to feed into these programs in order to derive insights about your businesses and make the right decisions. Even if you rely heavily on a single program that structures data, thereby making it easy to search for information, most of your data probably isn’t structured that way.
Indeed, as data evolves, so too must our search tools. Data is more complex than ever, rendering many legacy search tools obsolete nowadays.
Where Enterprise Search Tools Fall Short
Businesses manage an overwhelming volume of data that takes many forms. Your data may be structured or unstructured. It might be hidden or locked away inside of silos within your organization. It might not even be readable due to an obscure file type or limited access permissions. All of these obstacles can stop your search tools dead in their tracks.
One of the biggest obstacles comes from unstructured data. As this data doesn’t have a standardized structure where you can pinpoint specific types of data, search tools often struggle to parse these files. A Word doc is a good example of an unstructured document. Many search programs cannot read the contents of these docs, relying on metadata or simply the file’s title to return search results.
What is alarming, however, is that this data frequently contains sensitive information that could jeopardize your business in several ways. Without a solid grasp of what your data contains, you could fall victim to any one of these risks. You need to know your data, and only a powerful platform with the most advanced search tools can make that happen.
The Consequences of Missing Data
Even if your current search tool finds 90% of your data, that isn’t good enough. Would you walk across a minefield if 10% of the original munitions were still buried there? Even a minuscule amount of data that goes unaccounted for can present serious problems for your company. Consider just a few.
Increased Risk
Seemingly every article touts the potential benefits of data mining and data analysis. Data is the new oil, they say. Data is your most valuable asset, they claim. But rarely do we discuss the risks inherent to holding on to data.
The main risk is the potential for data theft. The classic PSAs that ran on cable TV asking, “Do you know where your children are?” come to mind. If you don’t know where your data is, how can you be sure it’s safe? How will you know if it’s been lost, stolen, or destroyed if you don’t have an automated platform tracking its every move?
Lost Productivity
Data analysts command high salaries, yet many of their hours are wasted on data management. They struggle to find and compile data sets in order to feed them into analytics software. However, this isn’t their fault.
The culprit is poor enterprise-level data management. Analysts have to sift through redundant or outdated files that shouldn’t be there in the first place. Automation can prevent your data from getting dirty and help your analysts focus on the work you actually want them to be doing.
Higher Operating Costs
Data isn’t free. It costs money to store, regardless of your storage solution. If your search tools can’t find hidden files, you may end up duplicating data unnecessarily or carrying oversized files that would be better off in a cold storage backup, or even in the recycle bin.
To avoid these risks and truly know your data, you need the most powerful search tools available. Aparavi’s platform not only locates and categorizes your data automatically, but it also can search every unstructured file in your organization. Book a demo of our software today to get your hands on your new favorite search tool.