You’ve probably heard of Microsoft SharePoint, and most likely used it, even if you didn’t realize it. SharePoint has been around for 20 years, but the software has really come into its own in recent years thanks to the rise in remote workforce collaboration.
It’s no coincidence that most Fortune 500 companies use SharePoint as their go-to document and collaboration control solution. It’s the best solution for businesses operating across multiple locations that need to give employees shared access to business intelligence and documents.
SharePoint enables authorized employees to open, review, edit, and share documents from anywhere in the world, and all they need is a web browser (Microsoft Edge, if you want to stay really on-brand). Sure, Google Drive does the same, but SharePoint comes with many more advanced features.
SharePoint can serve as a shared file repository, blog site, web content management system, and even an intranet, making it something of a one-stop-shop. It is also offered in multiple versions, including SharePoint Server and SharePoint Online (part of Microsoft 365, formerly Office 365), and integrates seamlessly with other Windows applications.
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9 SharePoint Benefits You Probably Didn’t Know About
SharePoint is renowned for increasing productivity, especially among global teams that require a lot of collaboration, communication, and file sharing. It replaces legacy programs with a cloud-based, easy-to-use document management that streamlines business operations.
Now that you’re licking your lips over SharePoint uses, let’s take a deeper look at them:
1. Better Data Management
Many office employees have become little more than email readers and file organizers in the modern workplace. Not only is this overwhelming and unfulfilling for staff, but it’s rarely a productive way to run a company.
Used effectively, SharePoint can greatly reduce reliance on email and minimize the need to keep documents organized by providing a central repository for communication and data.
The cloud-based SharePoint Online brings the added benefit of being able to do this on a global scale, and SharePoint integrates nicely with Microsoft Office Suite to keep things flexible.
2. Streamlined Workflows
An organization’s level of productivity is most often determined by the efficiency of its business processes, and this efficiency is hampered by convoluted, complex communication and document management methods.
SharePoint reduces many of the steps required in sharing, editing, and hosting files, saving time for staff to get more done and add value.
Take the example of a document approval workflow. Instead of having to create and store a Word document, email it to everyone who needs to review and sign, receive back the edited and approved versions, and store them all in an organized way, SharePoint brings all of these tasks into a centralized place where it’s much smoother to manage.
3. Improved Data Security and Compliance
Some businesses are hesitant to move their documents and communications into a new system because they are worried about how it will affect compliance and security. SharePoint is built to eliminate those fears, which is why organizations from healthcare to legal to financial are using it to improve efficiency while keeping peace of mind.
SharePoint emphasizes security and compliance by only allowing authorized users to access data and enabling administrators to use security settings that align with compliance regulations.
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4. Smoother Content Delivery
Content is king–and not just bloggers and marketing specialists. Edits, approvals, and feedback on contracts, legal documents, and proposals have been clunky to manage in the past, but real-time collaboration over a web-based document management platform changed the game.
SharePoint is designed to offer all the functionality that makes Microsoft Word so popular while offering the collaboration tools you may be familiar with from using the likes of Google Docs. It’s the complete package for working on, sharing, and storing documents.
5. Improved Internal and External Collaboration
Collaboration has taken on a new meaning in the remote workplace, and tools like SharePoint have allowed companies to make huge improvements when it comes to the efficiency and quality of teamwork.
It achieves this by centralizing file sharing in one location and allowing employees to swap and collaborate on files in a seamless, live way. No more confusion over file versions or messy editing of Word documents between numerous aggravated staff members.
6. Greater Productivity
We’ve already alluded to the idea that SharePoint is a productivity enhancer, but it bears repeating. Consider the hours that go into searching for files, organizing them, saving them, and coordinating edits, and then think about the time your staff will save by no longer having to do any of that in the traditional way.
Consolidating document management and collaboration into a SharePoint platform allows employees to do more of what matters to your business because they’ll spend less time on the mundane and clunky activities involving email, Word documents, and Windows folders.
7. Centralized Administration
If you think collaboration using disparate solutions such as email, Word, and Dropbox is a pain for regular employees, spare a thought for the IT team that has to manage it all to keep it secure and organized.
SharePoint makes the IT team’s life easier by centralizing administration and configuration into a single platform, making management much easier, safer, and less time-consuming.
SharePoint configurations simplify application management, backups, security settings, and more to give IT staff full control and peace of mind.
8. Simple Customization
SharePoint is a powerful tool right out of the box, but it can supercharge business workflows even more when customized to exact requirements. Custom applications can be easily added onto SharePoint to add new functionality and bring even more of your business operations into the platform.
Once your teams get comfortable using SharePoint, you can start rolling out new tools to the platform, and eventually, your whole business could be running through this trusty web window.
9. Elimination of Development Work
One of the lesser-known benefits of SharePoint is that it makes it easier for people who aren’t tech-savvy to bring advanced functionality to business operations.
Before the advent of such powerful technologies, technical developers were required to add more specific functionality and tools. SharePoint makes it easy to do things like build team sites from the ground up or create web parts.
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Leverage the Benefits of SharePoint for Your Organization
To sum up, SharePoint is the most popular document collaboration and management platform for good reason. It’s flexible, powerful, and efficient, and is sure to increase productivity across your organization.
The SharePoint developers at Tenecom are fanatics, and we’d love to help you learn more about how you can use SharePoint sites to improve your business operations. Get in touch today.