5 Reasons that SharePoint Deployments Fail: 1. Not Understanding What it is

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For many SharePoint is difficult to define.  Microsoft, itself can’t seem to put the description into a single sentence or even paragraph.  Not being able to describe what it is, presents a challenge right up front to gain organizational acceptance.  Some see it as a document management system, some as a portal platform, others as a task tracker.

Source: NothingbutSharePoint.com

Not knowing what SharePoint is can lead to unrealistic expectations, under utilization of the platform and or worse general confusion.  A majority of clients (we have our SharePoint business applications in over 100 organizations now) really don’t know what they have installed or what they might use it for.

So what is SharePoint?  Simply it is a next generation collaboration platform for your organization.

It is a set of technologies that when used together provides a collaboration platform unmatched by any in the industry.  SharePoint includes:

  • Document and Content Management
  • News and Collaboration functions like Announcements, Employee Directory, News feeds, Polls, surveys, forums, blogs, social networking integration and more.
  • Productivity features like task tracking, calendars, contact tracking, alerts, reminders etc.
  • Process automation, workflows, approval routing, forms etc.
  • Business intelligence reporting, dashboards, operational data slicing and dicing.
  • Data Integration features for LOB data and other data sources

Wow, that is a lot!  So what does that mean?  It means that your organization can leverage SharePoint to share and manage all documents, content, knowledge, and activities  related to your business.  It means you can quickly put in place business processes, alerts to critical business conditions and  reminders for key dates, such as a customer follow-up or employee performance plan.  SharePoint portals can be organized for teams, departments or communities.   Or it can be an application like CRM, Project Management, or Service Desk when all of these functions are combined.

A key point to remember is SharePoint is a PLATFORM, not an out of box solution.  Give it to your organization without any context and it is like running a PC with only Windows and no applications.  Powerful but not very useful.   You have to provide a context under which your users will use SharePoint.  To often, IT or consultants install SharePoint in its vanilla form team site.  Leaving users underwhelmed at its usefulness.  This is where we are often called in by management or business users.  Our SP Business Suite provides the context of an Intranet Portal, or CRM (sales), or project management all of which leverage the functionality discussed above but in the context of a solution.

With this we will stop and leave it to our second segment: 5 Reasons that SharePoint Deployments Fail: 2. Having no context from which to use SharePoint.

 

How SaaS Application Silos Can Kill Cloud Productivity Gains and Cost Savings

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We recently did a demonstration of our SharePoint business application suite for a major Association.  The organization contacted us to look into one of our Office 365 SharePoint Online applications.  They proudly stated that the organization was embracing a technology strategy to “move to the cloud”.   They are moving to Remedyforce for IT Helpdesk, Saleforce for CRM, two cloud HR apps, a home grown Intranet, cloud email and more.  Each of these have separate user interfaces, and most have separate sign-ons.  Plus they are using SharePoint (another sign-on and user interface) for collaboration and document sharing.  So while they may lower hardware costs  by deploying “siloed SaaS applications” they are creating more complexity for the business user by making them carry around a notebook of passwords and a binder of user manuals for each new application.  Additionally information sharing and data integration between applications is nearly impossible.  The following is from PC Magazine as the definition of a siloed application:

An application that does not interact with other applications or information
systems. A siloed application is any software that functions on its own to solve
a problem. Such applications are often found within the many departments of
enterprises.

cloud silos frustration

Whether you are in the cloud or on-premise, the siloed model occurs when individual departments choose applications with department blinders on.  Choosing a siloed application without consideration for the impact on users outside the department and the organizations need for dynamic information connectivity will create big problems down the road.  It is the IT and Operational Executive responsibility to stop

So how do you get the benefits of cloud technology without the pitfalls of individual SaaS siloed applications?  Try starting with a Cloud Technology Platform instead.  With this approach you start with a common collaboration platform like Microsoft Office 365 which combines email, communication, social networking, document management and business process automation into a single cloud based infrastructure.  This gives your users a single sign-on, common MS Office like interface and fully integrated email, messaging and document management environment.  Add SharePoint Online for business process automation, with business applications from companies like SP Marketplace and you get integrated business applications like Intranet Portal, CRM, HR, Employee Self-Service, IT Help Desk and more.

With this approach you will quickly realize the cloud productivity  benefits, savings and have a happy user base.  The strategy can be implemented in a phased manner, moving your email and collaboration applications to the cloud, and then following with an Intranet and then department applications one-by-one.  The ROI, will amaze you.  Instead of paying maintenance or subscription fees on 5-10 different applications, you consolidate to 1-3.  User support goes down because of the single sign-on and common user interface.  Any you will be dealing with a few vendors rather than many.

If you are in the early stages of your cloud strategy development, think about a cloud platform approach, rather than Siloed SaaS solutions.  We wish success in the Cloud!

Get more productivity from Office 365 and SharePoint Online

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With the advent of Cloud IT models, small to medium businesses have more opportunity than ever to save money, while at the same time enjoy productivity gains.  The Office 365 platform is a next generation cloud service offering that goes beyond simply offering email, file and document management in the cloud, but is a platform for transforming the way you do business.  Office 365 and SharePoint Online can go beyond the “office automation” to provide better ways for your team and partners to collaborate, and even to automate the core business processes (like time-off, expense reimbursement, service requests etc.) that may be done manually now.

 

Unfortunately, many Office 365 customers never go beyond basic office automation (email and office applications) to get the transformational productivity possible with enhanced team collaboration and business applications.   Most clients are happy to get rid of their exchange server, and perhaps use MS Office in the cloud rather than maintaining it on every employees client machine.  Unfortunately that is where many Office 365 implementations stop.  This provides only office automation benefits.  A subset implement Lync and SharePoint Online in their base form, creating a team site to share documents, calendars, tasks and maybe discussions.  This next step provides some collaboration benefits.  This is where it stops for over 90% of Office 365 customers.   Unfortunately, the step that provides the highest value, business process automation, is the step that most organizations miss.  Deploying a full Intranet, and department portals can be expensive.  Core business processes like Expense Reporting, Time-off Requests, HR functions like performance reviews, hiring, and internal service requests for IT, Facilities and Marketing departments continue to be done manually or with standalone applications (with maintenance costs and fees).   Some Office 365 customers try to build their own (but do not have the time or resources) or hire third-party consultants to build the business process applications (at great expense).

Getting more productivity from Office 365 leveraging SharePoint Online can be cost effectively achieved with pragmatic planning, and leveraging off the shelf application solutions where possible.  Intranet portal application templates are available which provide at least 80% of the functionality most organizations need.   Employee Self-Service and HR applications are also coming on the market as well.  Even CRM applications are now available for SharePoint and SharePoint Online.  Companies like SP Marketplace (www.spmarketplace.com) and EasyShare (www.easyshare.com) offer alternatives which can take your Office 365 deployment to the next level of productivity with a cost-effective approach.  Several Office 365 service providers are adding these type of solution suites to their offerings and building a phased approach deployment methodology for taking Office 365 to its full potential.

Implementing a SharePoint based Intranet: Build, Buy or Both?

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Many organizations are looking to create a central point of information sharing, collaboration and access to internal services through implementation of an intranet.  Often they are using SharePoint on-premise or Office 365 SharePoint Online as a platform.   A recent survey (Modalis Research Technology) showed that the average intranet took over 15 months to implement and averaged over $40,000 in costs.  Another interesting aspect of the survey is that the basic features required in an intranet across organizations were very consistant.  Those were:

  • Organization communications – announcements, news, events, policies and procedures
  • Employee Collaboration – employee directory, forums, discussions
  • Employee self-service – service requests, time-off, expenses, and more
  • Integration of processes – links to key applications like ERP, CRM, email, customer service
  • Support for department portals – HR, Sales, Marketing, Finance, IT

The question is, if 70-80% of all organizations need the same features, why are so many intranet portals being built from scratch?  Why couldn’t you start with an 80% template and customize from there?

In reality that is what may consulting firms who build bespoke intranets do.  They have templates they use in engagements.  Unfortunately, they do not always tell their clients that, because, if they did, they could not charge the fees they are getting.

Enter a few companies who are providing intranet applications which are full featured, easily brandable and can be deployed and customized to an organization’s requirements without programming.  Companies like SP Marketplace (www.spmarketplace.com) , Clerkswell (www.easyshare.com), and others offer turn-key intranet applications which introduce an option for Buy versus Build.   These applications are prebuilt intranet portals which can be installed and configured and branded for much less money and time than the traditional bespoke engagement.  Additionally, because they are developed to be customized, and configuring them to your needs can be done without programming and thus having to call back the consultants.

For example, one SMB in Virginia (100 employees) who is looking to deploy and Intranet, got build bids from traditional SharePoint consulting firms ranging from $28,000 to $47,000 for the project, versus the buy route from SP Marketplace at less than $10,000, deployed and configured.  Deployment time was 1 month versus 6 months as well.

SharePoint applications

This is a natural market progression, and we will see more packaged application venders enter the SharePoint marketplace which will result in lower overall costs for the customer.  With the advent of Office 365 as a lower cost model for SMBs, providing the corresponding savings for application solutions will need to follow.  This can only be done with repeatable packaged applications which are flexible enough to address the custom 10-20% of features required.

For traditional SharePoint consulting firms, they will either need to stick with just the large enterprise deployments or adjust their business model to fit the financial realities of the SMB market.

 

Welcome to the SMB Cloud Blog

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Welcome to the SMB Cloud Blog.   This site is designed to provide small to medium businesses with information, tips and the latest news about how to use SharePoint and Office 365 to improve productivity, increase sales and customer satisfaction to gain competitive advantage.  We will focus on common sense, cost effective solutions which can be easily deployed and used by your employees, business partners and customers.  We will also invite guest contributors to publish articles as well.