5 Reasons Why You Must Absolutely Go to SharePoint

Sarah Seddiki

For some time now, articles on SharePoint features and best practices in electronic document management (EDM) have been published (GED). I hear you saying, “Do I really need SharePoint?”»

You probably already use various software and applications to facilitate teamwork such as Office 365 groups, Teams, Asana, Planner, OneDrive and Yammer – just to name a few. So why move to SharePoint?

1. For an all-inclusive

What’s great about SharePoint is that it’s actually a one-stop shop. In addition to being compatible with most of the software and applications you use every day, SharePoint includes absolutely all the tools and features you need :

  • Sites, document libraries and lists

  • Using metadata for optimal document management

  • Project management (exchanges / conversations, shared calendar, assignment of tasks, project monitoring)

  • Automated workflows

  • Full Intranet

  • Decision support tools

  • Enhanced security (permissions and permission levels)

You will notice that SharePoint brings together the various features developed by Microsoft for its other tools such as Office 365, Teams and OneDrive. In fact, you already use pieces of SharePoint here and there without even knowing it!

2. For a complete corporate intranet

You benefit from grouping your business data in one place, commonly called an Intranet.And that’s exactly what SharePoint allows you to do by centralizing your data and applications.

Today, an Intranet is called upon to play several important roles for any organization:

  • Collaborative work tool

  • Creation and sharing of various documents

  • Internal communication medium

We can not simply deprive ourselves of an accessible, efficient and secure Intranet, whatever the size and the sector of activity of the company. It’s a bit like the Internet: what business would happen today?

By choosing SharePoint as your Intranet, you can customize the appearance of sites, libraries, and lists to reflect your corporate colors. And compared to other existing intranet solutions, SharePoint requires very little IT knowledge to achieve the expected result.

3. To increase efficiency

Everyone wants to go faster. Yes, but not at any price! Still, it must be effective in the tasks you perform. This is where SharePoint can help you.

Thanks to its simple and intuitive operation, SharePoint promotes the sharing of information and the connections between the members of your work team. Information circulates more fluidly and everyone can bring their personal touch to ensure the success of your projects.

And what about SharePoint versioning, which simplifies the management of different versions of the same document! With SharePoint, you can finally say goodbye to the multiple versions that circulate as email attachments and that cause considerable loss of time.

Not to mention the security copies that must be planned to avoid data loss. With SharePoint, it becomes much easier with the automation of this task and the retention of your data in Microsoft servers (if you use SharePoint Online).

But there’s more: SharePoint’s decision-support tools, make it easier for you to see and make informed choices for your business. You only need to create interactive portals that will give you a live overview of critical information for your projects (budget, resource usage, milestones, important dates, for example). By having an overview accessible at all times, it becomes even easier to make the right decisions based on your business objectives. In short, adopting SharePoint is a great way to reduce overall costs and increase the productivity of your organization.

4. To simplify the training of your staff

If there is another aspect on which SharePoint can help you be more effective, it is the training of your staff! Think about all the training hours you put in learning how to use various software and platforms like document management in Office 365, security in OneDrive, or project management with MS Project. Each has its own characteristics and its own functioning. Not to mention that we have to find the right person to give all these formations …

By adopting SharePoint in your company, you make it easier. Of course, you will still need to train your work teams – that’s not the point – but you will not have to run left and right to find trainers and orchestrate everything as before.

And because SharePoint is so popular around the world, there are online courses, specialized blogs on the subject, and a host of resources available online 24/7. Pretty interesting, is not it?

5. To ensure the security of your data

It can not be repeated enough: your company’s data deserve a foolproof security. Data theft has become a major concern for any business, regardless of the area of ​​business. Nowadays, we can no longer ignore theconfidentiality of data, it is simply unthinkable. You may also be working in an industry with specific rules and requirements surrounding the confidentiality of information.

With SharePoint permission levels, you can protect your sensitive data at any time. In summary, SharePoint permission levels allow you to assign or restrict access to certain data to users.

Take the time to read our article on the usefulness and operation of SharePoint permission levels to learn more about this major feature. You’ll see how quick and easy it is to give permissions to a new employee, for example, or immediately revoke the permissions of a departing employee. Everything is done very quickly, without delay and without having to refer to the manager of each application you are currently using.

In addition, it is reassuring for any business to be able to count on the advanced security technologies implemented by Microsoft, which is behind SharePoint. Security updates are also regularly offered by Microsoft. So you have very little internal work to do to secure your data.

With all that we have seen, it is not surprising to know that 75% of Fortune 500 companies use SharePoint! These companies see all the benefits that SharePoint brings to them on a daily basis. They know that with this platform, they gain in productivity and efficiency, while benefiting from increased security. Above all, they appreciate the fact that SharePoint is compatible with the other applications they use.

But, in fact, you do not have to be a multinational to take advantage of the many benefits of SharePoint. The platform is also designed for local SME who want to have a reliable and efficient system. This is probably where SharePoint scores: it is accessible to all, regardless of the size of the company.

A Greater Montreal company that listens to your projects!