Using SharePoint for document management has been a hot topic in the past year. If you’re considering the platform for your business, you may be wondering whether it’s a good choice. To help you decide, we’ve devised three questions to consider, and the reasons for and against using SharePoint in each case.
Do you want a highly customisable collaboration platform?
One of the most compelling reasons to use SharePoint is its flexibility. At its core, SharePoint is a collaboration platform. It lets you access and edit its underpinning code, so the customisation possibilities are limitless.
You can create a team website, an online social network for your company, and even integrate the site with databases and applications. In other words, you can perfectly tailor SharePoint to your company’s needs, which raises an interesting dilemma. Advanced customisability can either be a blessing or a curse.
As outlined in SharePoint or S#!tPoint? Examples of good and bad deployments, if there’s no governance of the platform, SharePoint customisation can get out of hand quickly — leading to out of sync workflows, disjointed sites, duplicate documents, and the ensuing downtime required to clear up the confusion. To avoid this, we always recommend you have a plan and a gatekeeper chosen before you implement SharePoint.
- SharePoint is a smart choice if: you have a gatekeeper, plan or service provider/consultant (like Total Calibration).
- SharePoint is probably not best if: you decide to use it without a plan, governance, or any kind of guidance.
How much does your business rely on Microsoft?
Much of the business world relies on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and all three are easily accessible through SharePoint. If your business is already dependent on Microsoft applications, the easy access under one roof will save your team a lot of time when collaborating on projects.
What if your business uses Google or another service for document storage, email and collaboration? Can you still use SharePoint? Yes, you can. But whether you should depends on a few things.
If your business is heavily reliant on another collaboration platform/service, then SharePoint may not be the best choice. With that said, remember that SharePoint is highly customisable and can integrate with many applications, including Google Drive and Dropbox. So if you only use a small segment of these platforms, SharePoint is still worth considering.
- SharePoint is a smart choice if: your business is already using many Microsoft products.
- SharePoint is probably not best if: you’re already a medium-sized business or larger, and are heavily dependent on G Suite, Zoho Office, or a similar service.
Are you interested in growth?
The truth is, not all businesses are. Some are very happy being small and staying small. However, if you foresee consistent and long-term business growth, then SharePoint is almost certainly a great investment.
The platform’s high customisability, diverse functionality, and scalability make it perfect for small businesses with visions of becoming medium-sized companies, large enterprises, and beyond.
- SharePoint is a smart choice if: you’re a forward-thinking business with big plans to grow and potentially even become an enterprise.
- SharePoint is probably not best if: you’re small and happy being small.
We hope these thinking points help you decide on whether SharePoint DMS is right for your business. If you have any questions or need help implementing the platform, talk to us today. We can customise your SharePoint solution to your heart’s desire, and provide you the guidance you need to find success with the platform.
