Before you hire your SharePoint deployment company you should ask certain crucial questions to ensure that you are choosing the right company to deploy SharePoint in your organisation.

The first and the most important question that you should ask your software company is their experience level as an organisation in terms of the number of years they have been dealing with SharePoint.

Secondly, you must also check for the average experience level of the experts that will be engaged in the deployment of SharePoint in your organisation. This is a very important question because as a software company they may have several years of experience, but the professionals that are present at the time of deployment of SharePoint in your organisation, may just be newbies in SharePoint. This will certainly become an area of concern during the implementation stages. So it is best to establish the average experience level of the individual software professionals that will be engaged in the deployment of SharePoint in your organisation.

Thirdly you should ask the versions they work with and make sure that they specialise in the version that you would like to deploy in your organisation.

Fourthly, you should ask your SharePoint deployment company for a detailed picture of the required hardware and software.  You must also make sure that you understand the cost involved in having the required hardware and software in place.

You should be clear about the nature and the duration of SharePoint support you will get from your deployment company. Once you deploy SharePoint 2007 in your company, you will have to live with it day in and day out and you are likely to run in to problems. The answers to “when you do run into such problems how do you deal with them” and “who you will be running to for help”, should be established before you venture into SharePoint 2007 deployment. Many companies struggle in this area because they get inadequate SharePoint support from their software company either because their software company has insufficient experience or because they lack enough manpower to provide the required support.

Overall cost for the implementation of SharePoint 2007 and subsequent support will be of paramount importance. You must make sure that you understand their pricing structure very clearly before you contract your software company.

Having specific experience in your industry is an added advantage so this should be one of the important questions you should ask your SharePoint deployment company.

Questions on overall timeline for the deployment of SharePoint for the entire organisation and the measures that you would be required to take for seamless integration of SharePoint 2007 for your organisation must be answered.

It is not enough to ask these questions, you should make sure that you get satisfactory response from your SharePoint deployment company.

So you have decided to implement SharePoint in your organisation and you have started looking for a company to assist you with the entire process. Companies make a number of mistakes during the implementation of SharePoint which lead to unsuccessful or less effective deployment of SharePoint.

Before you start your search for a software development company to help you with SharePoint deployment you should have a very clear understanding of your entire organisation and the document flow within the organisation. Remember, the success or failure of your SharePoint deployment will depend totally on the quality of information that you supply your software company. If any wrong information is passed on or miscommunication should take place in this area, then it will result in serious problems at a later stage.

Secondly, many companies just jump into this process without realising the complexity of the task they are undertaking. So you should understand that SharePoint deployment is a very complex process. You will certainly need the best experts in this field and with their help you will be able to face the challenges more effectively. This also involves hard work from your end as an organisation.

Thirdly, companies try to evaluate their service provider or software company solely based on the quote offered rather than basing their decision on the experience level, quality of solution offered, reputation of the company, possible future SharePoint support etc. This often backfires as they end up spending more on solving the issues created by ineffective deployment of SharePoint.

Having poor hierarchy in terms of access, permissions, administrators, contributors, authors, approving authorities etc, is another common mistake. This often happens with companies that have very little knowledge about SharePoint but like to implement it in their organisation. This is where the software company should help your company understand the implications of implementing SharePoint in your organisation and how it could be effectively put to use. Only an experienced company will be able to offer such help to their customers.

As implementation of SharePoint is a complex process, it may not be readily welcomed by the entire organisation. So, before the implementation, the idea should be sold well throughout the organisation so that every stakeholder cooperates in whatever way required during the implementation of SharePoint and for the successful running of the system. Many companies take this factor for granted and fail to sell the idea well within the organisation.

Ineffective training, motivation and follow-up are other common problem areas. Companies fail to spend enough time training and motivating their staff in the effective use of the new system that they are deploying. If effectively used, SharePoint will increase the efficiency of the entire organisation.

Days are the gone when one needed a coder/programmer to design and code his website. Now web development software has emerged in market which allows one to create an intranet site he always wanted to have. Sharepoint has not only have vanished the need of the programmers or designers but also cut on the costs. Now with prebuilt web development software, one can design the site, change the site or can do updates on the site whenever he wishes to have them. Sharepoint has given the independence to the users which they ever wished for. This software has omitted the need for learning how to design the sites and how to code them which was a tedious process till now. Now there is no need to wait to bring your site up if it has crashed as you can do these things with your own hand.