With hybrid working now common practice across a wide range of sectors, more businesses are proactively implementing productivity-enhancing tools to ensure internal collaboration and efficiency.
Once upon a time, document management and file sharing was managed by an on-premises legacy system hosted on an in-house server, now, the emergence of cloud computing has opened the door to an era of increased flexibility, allowing employees to access files from any location.
When you really think about it, it’s a game-changing development and one that many of us take for granted in modern business – we have come to expect such accessibility in a world where Teams meetings and AI are the new normal.
With that being said, there are still many organisations actively using outdated or unsupported tools, not realising how much extra potential they could unlock with the introduction of a flexible alternative, like SharePoint Online.
To help you understand better, we’ve detailed some of the most important benefits that businesses will experience if they move to SharePoint Online.
Information management and productivity
One of the biggest disruptors of workplace productivity is poor organisation. Each week, hours are wasted by employees as they frantically dig through archives and past correspondence in search of a specific document or file.
Unfortunately, a simple search can quickly turn into all-out confusion, as misplaced folders containing duplicate documents create uncertainty within teams, with nobody quite sure as to which is the correct version.
SharePoint Online addresses this issue by allowing businesses to store all their documents within a single consolidated platform. The SharePoint site can be organised so that it only contains the folders and subfolders your team needs – this allows employees to quickly find specific documents without unnecessary delays.
The cloud-based nature of SharePoint Online also means that these files can be accessed by anyone from anywhere, allowing off-site employees to stay productive – something that outdated legacy systems can’t do.
The best part is, users can apply strict security measures through the use of SharePoint’s comprehensive settings, ensuring that only authorised users have access to confidential employee and client data. By allowing businesses to set specific permissions, it encourages enhanced productivity without the risk of serious data breaches.
Enhanced collaboration
For businesses to promote a culture of hybrid working, they must be confident that teams have the tools and resources needed to collaborate. There is no business willing to sacrifice quality or output for increased flexibility, but fortunately SharePoint Online allows both.
Allowing collaboration with internal or external resources, a central admin user can assign different levels of access permission to individual users of team sites. From there, more than one person can access and work on the same document at the same time through SharePoint’s co-authored capabilities.
This makes it ideal for those involved in group projects, especially as SharePoint contains a range of functionalities that enable users to streamline important tasks, like handovers, approvals and client feedback, through the creation of specific workflows. The platform also syncs with your Outlook and Calendar profile to organise tasks and schedules so that you can manage your workload accordingly.
By seamlessly integrating with Microsoft 365, employees can continue to use other collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and OneDrive, conducting meetings and calls at a moment’s notice.
Above all else, SharePoint Online opens the door to increased connectivity, allowing ideas, documents and important information to flow throughout the business instead of it being restricted to one specific team or area.
Highly customisable/adaptable
Perhaps one of the biggest concerns for businesses when looking to implement a new solution is how it will impact employees and will it satisfy their unique needs and requirements.
Fortunately, SharePoint is a highly customisable platform that can be tailored for any situation or setting – there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to the design and implementation process. Of course, small businesses will have different needs and priorities compared to large organisations and SharePoint understands this.
As you begin making changes to your business’ website, you can change the SharePoint intranet site in terms of design, navigation, content and features, creating a personal user interface to make the experience worker-friendly. Aside from Microsoft 365, you can also integrate SharePoint with CRM and ERP tools, adding another layer of customisability.
This allows users to quickly get used to the new solution, removing the need for time-consuming training courses that end up impacting short-term productivity. Then, as business objectives and requirements develop over time, the solution can be adapted and customised, preventing it from ever becoming obsolete.
Begin the migration process…
For busy organisations, the thought of upgrading their solution can be off-putting as it sounds like a lot of work that will end up causing widespread disruption.
However, with the support of an experienced team of software consultants, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Through close consultation with key stakeholders, the design and migration progress can be managed from start to finish, ensuring a smooth transition for all teams and employees.
The customisation and implementation will be taken care of, allowing ongoing operations to continue as normal. Remember, if you are currently using the outdated 2010 or 2013 version of SharePoint then future bugs or issues will not be addressed by Microsoft, so it’s important to migrate to SharePoint Online if this is the case.
For more information on our SharePoint migration services, please get in touch and arrange a consultation with our team of software specialists.