Transcript Enterprise Search at AT Kearney

Enterprise Search at A.T. Kearney
An overview of the industry leading search toolsets that gives
A.T. Kearney a significant competitive advantage.
Amin Negandhi
Co-Founder, Partner, Echelon Consulting, LLC
1
Presentation Overview
 Who is A.T. Kearney
 Defining the Challenge
 How Oracle Secure Enterprise Search is Used
 Competitive Advantage
 Solid Return on Investment
2
Who is A.T. Kearney?
 A full-service, high value business management consulting company founded in 1926.
 Helps the world’s leading corporations gain and sustain competitive advantage and
achieve profound tangible results.
 Headquartered in Chicago, with over 50 offices internationally.
 A.T. Kearney is a recognized global leader in delivering superior value to clients through
a unique combination of thought leadership and strategic impact.
 A.T. Kearney’s continued success depends upon the ability to deliver knowledge and
expertise accurately, efficiently and professionally.
• 98.4 percent rate A.T. Kearney's overall performance excellent or good.
• 98.1 percent rate expertise as excellent or good.
• 95.7 percent rate collaboration with clients teams as excellent or good.
 Efficiently and effectively accessing and sharing knowledge is a key differentiation
between A.T. Kearney and our competitors.
3
Defining the Challenge
 Knowledge is A.T. Kearney’s primary market differentiation.
 Experience and expertise with solving global business issues has driven
A.T. Kearney’s business model for over 75 years.
 Leveraging existing knowledge and providing access to that knowledge, on a global scale, is
fundamental to A.T. Kearney’s ability to rapidly, accurately and effectively assist clients.
 Size complicates the equation. Global offices provide local expertise and experiences that can be
leveraged. However identifying that knowledge and leveraging it can be a challenge.
 Retaining client confidentiality is paramount in our industry – sharing knowledge is key.
 Any and all of our tools must provide…
• Easy, rapid identification and location capabilities
• Remain sensitive to client confidentialities and protect them
• Share information and integrate with multiple knowledge management tools and technologies
• Remain cost competitive
4
Why A.T. Kearney selected Oracle Secure
Enterprise Search
 Need a search resource that can provide access to distributed information, from a
variety of diverse information resources
• Information repositories range from highly structured relational databases to freeform formats such as word processing documents, presentations, emails, in-house
chat rooms and instant messaging programs.
 Any search technology deployed must effectively protect data using existing
authentication, access control and security policy resources.
 Competitive tools reviewed didn’t have a well thought out security architecture and
didn’t provide a complete solution for retaining information security within our existing
environments.
 Need a tool that could evolve and adapt with us as our Knowledge Management tools
are refined and adapted to present business requirements.
5
A key component to our competitive advantage…
 Oracle Secure Enterprise Search is a core component and enabling technology within
our @Knowledge portal resource
 @Knowledge provides a searchable gateway into A.T. Kearney’s most valuable
knowledge repositories
 Oracle Secure Enterprise Search provides the essential link that allows our consulting
teams to locate, identify and leverage past knowledge on a global scale
 It retains client confidentiality by recognizing and leveraging existing data and
document security information on individual systems
• When information is located that is protected, “owner” information is available so
contact and requests for access can be made efficiently and rapidly
 Tight integration with web enabled technologies provides a clean, single sign-on
security platform with simple, common and easy to use interfaces
 Easy, powerful tools that leverage Oracle Secure Enterprise Search deliver fast,
reliable and accurate results
6
Familiar “Search Bar”
Simple, free text search term
interface delivers simple, common
search interface for all users of all
languages.
7
Tight integration with multiple knowledge
repositories
Ability to define what knowledge
resource is searched, providing
essential granularity – improving
search accuracy and delivering
specific control to search user.
Provides unlimited power while
rapidly delivering results.
8
In addition to “Search Bar” ability to conduct
precise meta-data-based searches (e.g., author)
Oracle Secure Enterprise
Search’s flexibility allows us to
also provide a more structured
search format – addressing
specific user search preferences
and delivering highly accurate,
immediate search results.
9
Search result paragraphs are tuned to the
specifications of the data / application owner
Search results are displayed by
knowledge source, providing
immediate information on where
that information is located.
Integration with @Knowledge
toolset provides “single-click”
immediate access to the
knowledge resource via single
sign-on.
10
Seamless integration with Intranet such that
search is omnipresent
Complete integration allows us
to deliver a single, searchable
knowledge portal that all
knowledge workers can
efficiently leverage.
Delivers flexibility by allowing
each user to search, use and
contribute information to the
global knowledge resources.
Integration with existing security
infrastructure provides
customization and focus to the
resource.
11
The key to enterprise search is not just the
technology – it is the process and culture of
keeping content fresh and relevant
 To keep content fresh, it was essential for us to “tap into” user-accepted collaboration
areas and keep the barriers / pain of submitting knowledge to a minimum
 Interestingly, the culture of the firm has moved toward the “Web 2.0” way of working
because our users are now frequent users of LinkedIn, hi5, Google Docs, etc. They
have come to expect a certain level of intuitive ease when working with applications,
and our findings have been that the closer we are to this paradigm, the more readily
our users are willing to use it.
 To some extent or another, most of us have some characteristics that could be
considered vain. In our view, this partially explains the success of social networking
sites such as Facebook. We have creatively tapped into this phenomenon to lure
users to our knowledge search application.
 To actually have content to index, it was key that we convinced our content /
application owners to participate. To achieve this we focused on two areas:
• Resolute adherence to security
• Ability for the owners to design their own search result “paragraphs”
12
Tapping into user-accepted team workspaces to
capture knowledge with minimal barriers
13
Tapping into user-accepted team workspaces to
capture knowledge with minimal barriers
(continued)
14
A Clear Return on Investment
 Enterprise search functionality is a dynamic, enabling technology that…
• Time is money. Enterprise Search speeds knowledge location.
• Directly improves and impacts the quality of knowledge services we provide.
• Rapidly finds specific knowledge expertise resources within the firm, reducing
research and preparatory time and costs.
 Becomes a trusted, valued knowledge resource within the enterprise
• Integrated, flexible but accurate security protects highly sensitive data, while allowing
others to identify that it exists and tracks who “owns” that knowledge
 Easier access to knowledge and knowledge experts directly impacts the quality and
depth of the knowledge we deliver to our clients.
• Positions A.T. Kearney more competitively
• Delivers higher quality knowledge and expertise to client
• Drives high satisfaction levels with our services, facilitates repeat business
15
A Clear Return on Investment (continued)
 Serves as the glue between our various applications by reporting search results across
all of them in one place
16
Enterprise Search at A.T. Kearney
An overview of the industry leading search toolsets that gives
A.T. Kearney a significant competitive advantage.
Amin Negandhi
Co-Founder, Partner, Echelon Consulting, LLC
17