At first glance, the joy of owning Microsoft Sharepoint online may be a bit overwhelming due to its vast array of features, particularly in the absence of an overall implementation plan.
Often, SharePoint’s is seen in a “singular” context to provide more efficient—and secure— document management and collaborative integration throughout the organization.
Often overlooked, are the software’s other capabilities, such its ease in developing and maintaining the company’s Intranet; too, select vendors can be given limited access to team member documents during a project.
The overall success in launching, training and maintaining the SharePoint suite can be summed up by reviewing the “5 Pillars of SharePoint Governance” with ‘security’ being the first on the list; the other remaining Pillars (auditing, reliability, usability and supportability) are also key to securing content; this, through designating user permissions, for example, not to mention keeping the network up-to-date with the most recent patches.
One of the methods of overseeing the platform to make sure it is meeting a “business goal or objective” is to appoint one Business Owner of the suite who works with the technical team ensure the untapped potential of SharePoint will ultimately evolve toward meeting those objectives.
It’s an age-old problem of overcoming people’s resistance to change, and bringing SharePoint on board pushes the envelop for many users: they need to be shown “the value in the change.”
As Jennifer Mason points out on CMSWire:
“…the trick is to know where you want to be, to start small and keep growing. You may be using SharePoint as a way to centrally store documents today, but as long as you keep the forward momentum, who knows where you’ll be three months from now?”
Furthermore, it isn’t about getting it SharePoint up and running to it’s maximum potential from the outset. More so, the successful users started “small” with an eye to adding features when the modules were understood.
Today’s successful businesses understand how important it is to use the right technology to maintain their competitive advantage. Contact us to learn more about implementing cloud-service tools like SharePoint, or why more and more clients are coming to rely on us as their managed service provider.
