Every business needs a means tto securely store, organize, share, and access information, and Microsoft offers SharePoint for small businesses to do this and keep their operations running smoothly as a result. SharePoint is Microsoft’s intranet solution for enterprises of all shapes and sizes, and for SMB’s it is certainly worth looking into for data management and collaboration.
What is SharePoint?
SharePoint is part of the Microsoft Office 365 family, which means that it works seamlessly with all of Microsoft’s productivity applications. However, SharePoint isn’t a Microsoft-exclusive product. For example, it easily integrates with popular enterprise software from third parties.
Why Sharepoint?
Accessibility
SharePoint makes data securely accessible by web browsers like Chrome and Firefox (and, of course, it works great with IE and Edge). In fact, this is probably one of SharePoint’s most obvious strengths: It can be accessed from the web browser of virtually any internet-connected device. This is possible thanks to SharePoint’s ability to be hosted on the cloud, or on-premises (in your own IT infrastructure).
Versatility
Another advantage of SharePoint comes from its versatility. As explained by the Microsoft support page, here are four ways that SharePoint can benefit your business:
- SharePoint Online. This is cloud-based service, hosted by Microsoft, for small and large businesses alike. Instead of installing and deploying SharePoint Server on-premises, organizations can subscribe to an Office 365 plan, or to just the SharePoint Online service. Using SharePoint Online, your employees can create intranet sites for the purpose of sharing documents and files with colleagues and customers.
- SharePoint Foundation. SharePoint Foundation is available for on-premises deployment. You can use SharePoint Foundation to create a variety of sites that let your team collaborate on documents, lists, calendars, and other mission-critical data.
- SharePoint Server. Organizations have the option to deploy and manage SharePoint Server on-premises. SharePoint Server also offers additional features and capabilities like Enterprise Content Management, business intelligence, enterprise search, personal sites, and a news feed.
- OneDrive for Business folder sync. This is a desktop program that allows you to sync offline versions of your files to a folder on your computer.
Collaboration
The primary benefit of SharePoint is that it allows everyone on your team to share corporate data with each other. SharePoint is essentially the ultimate team collaboration tool for enterprises. Here are just some of the ways it can benefit your operations:
- Share documents and files with employees and partners.
- Host internal training guides.
- Manage and organize projects.
- Keep commonly updated documents in order.
- Build and maintain repeatable processes.
- Use it as a single, central location for everything going on internally.
Not sure if SharePoint is the solution that your company needs? Well, whatever data-sharing platform you go with will affect operations in a major way. You’re going to want to make sure that you consult an IT advisor before making such an important decision regarding your company’s mission-critical technology!
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