If you answered yes, you’re not alone.

Over the past few years, KMS has exploded in popularity for enterprises.

Companies and enterprises of all sizes worldwide provide information to disparate, global teams via Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). These tools are a great way to provide a source of truth to employees and support teams in collaboration. However, many of these systems lack robust search capabilities leading to frustration and information roadblocks. 

Search in KMS is a struggle.

According to Gartner, “KMS enables various operations around documents and files to optimize access and flow of information within an organization and is compatible with multiple file types like documents, presentations, audio-video files, etc., to enable all these operations.” 

Hmm, optimizing access to information sounds like a great benefit, right? But what if the search capabilities in these tools aren’t optimizing access? Asynchronous work is promoted as the result of KMS, but what if it’s not the case?  According to a Cornell University study, Killing Time at Work, employees are wasting time every day trying to find information hidden within KMS apps; 6 in 10 say it’s hard to know what colleagues are doing when you can’t find information within these systems with ease. 

The cost of not finding information.

Inconsistent KMS search engines can leave employees dredging through hundreds of irrelevant search results. Time is worth so much more than this. Getting stuck in patterns of inefficient search engines within KMS comes at the cost of productivity and focus. Costs emerge in different ways when employees spend too much time searching within KMS, including: 

1. Time-Teams are spending so much time digging for knowledge that they could be spending building software, creating content, supporting clients, training employees, and more. According to VentureBeat, employees spend 3.6 hours each day looking for information. As we are all aware,  time is money. 
2. Focus-It’s human nature to become frustrated with constantly searching for knowledge, files, and data  needed to be successful. This creates negative energy and morale among team members, resulting in reduced productivity and focus, which can affect a company’s bottom line. 
3. Resources-There is a monetary cost associated with endless searching for lost knowledge. This can result in employees duplicating efforts and recreating projects that have already been completed. There is undoubtedly a cost associated with this practice. 

What is the solution to the search problem?

 In 2003, not long before the emergence of  SaaS apps, David Gilmour, former CEO of Tacit systems, acquired by Oracle, reflected on knowledge management in the Harvard Business Review. He said:  “Technology should not flood people with information or take it from them; instead, it should identify connections that are valuable to the people that are being connected.” 

It’s now 2023, and the same issues exist. That is why Mantium is changing how you approach search engines within KMS. With our AI platform, we want to bring organizations a search experience they don’t dread, one that actually finds the knowledge and answers users so desperately need. 

Mantium can help.

Mantium’s end-to-end AI platform has advanced QA abilities to support teams within any KMS to quickly gain the insight and answers they need. Turn your KMS data into insightful, actionable information with endless powerful business-improving capabilities with Mantium. 

To learn how to develop a QA pipeline using Haystack, read our blog.

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