Is SharePoint Implementation Viable For Small Businesses?

There is a misconception amongst small business owners that Microsoft SharePoint is not for them. Many small business owners stay away from SharePoint implementation because they are convinced that it is only for large corporations with a huge IT budget. One of the reasons why small business owners are hesitant to go for SharePoint implementation is because they are made to believe that SharePoint implementation always requires a huge investment, so they do not even bother to find out the options that are available for them.

Secondly, they are afraid that if they were to go for SharePoint implementation, they may also have to go for expensive hardware upgrades. Before making your own assumptions here, you will have to find an Information Technology consulting company that specialises in business management software solutions to get their professional advice. What if you were wrong in assuming that SharePoint implementation is always expensive? This does not mean that SharePoint implementation will not cost you any money at all, but you will need an expert to tell you how much it would cost. If the figure they quote happens to be within your affordable budget, you would have done your business a great disfavour if you hadn’t enquired. Therefore, look for a reliable IT consulting company before jumping to conclusions.

Every business that is considering SharePoint implementation must look at it as a long-term investment and how it will enhance the operations of the organisation. They should also take into consideration the future savings that they will enjoy by SharePoint implementation.

Even with small businesses, uniform information sharing or effective internal communication is vital for seamless operation. Just because you are a small business, you can never be 100% sure that you have the most effective information distribution within your organisation. SharePoint implementation will ensure that you have effective communications within the organisation and no problem occurs because of ineffective internal communication. This will save a considerable amount of loss that you are currently incurring every year because of issues that can easily be resolved with SharePoint implementation.

Your staff will be able to handle document management much more easily with the help of SharePoint. Every organisation will have its own vision to grow big and to become a national, if not global, brand. Therefore, you should also learn to think big and prepare yourself for the future. If you have effective tools such as SharePoint to help you improve your organisation’s efficiency, you will be able to take faster strides towards achieving your dreams for your organisation.

With the help of a good IT consulting company, you will be able to deploy SharePoint in the most cost effective way. Your IT consulting company will work with you closely to customise SharePoint to fit your specific needs.

You should ignore all your preconceived notions that SharePoint deployment is only for the big organisations and start making efforts towards finding customised SharePoint solutions suitable for your organisation’s requirements and budget.

One of the things that you must make sure to do prior to SharePoint deployment in your organisation is talk to a SharePoint consultant. Why is this step so important in your SharePoint integration? The simple answer to this question is that if you talk to a SharePoint consultant prior to SharePoint integration you will be able to:

-          make the right choices

-          implement the right solutions

-          save a lot of time and

-          maximise the benefits of SharePoint integration within your organisation

SharePoint is a very elaborate business management software solution. Its maximum potential can be realised only when it is customised properly. Prior to the deployment of SharePoint, you must engage in extensive planning. You will not be able to make the right choices all by yourself; you will certainly need the help of a SharePoint professional. Rather than making assumptions and wrong choices, you should spend time with your SharePoint consultant discussing your requirements.

When we say that you should talk to your SharePoint consultant, we don’t mean just any SharePoint consultant, you will have to make sure to choose the most experienced SharePoint consultancy services that enjoy a good reputation within the industry. An inexperienced SharePoint consultant will only create havoc in the SharePoint deployment in your organisation.

Before you proceed with your SharePoint deployment you first need to make sure to sell the idea to your organisation to get the fullest co-operation. Your SharePoint deployment will be successful only when you get complete co-operation from all quarters and stakeholders within your organisation. Your SharePoint consultant will help you get through this phase successfully.

You should let your SharePoint consultant study your organisation and your business model fully so that they can offer you tailor-made solutions that fit your organisation and your requirements 100%. SharePoint will only be helpful in improving your organisation’s efficiency to the extent that it is customised to suit your specific requirements.

As you will be able to make the right choices first time with the help of your SharePoint consultant, you will save a lot of time. SharePoint deployment involves a lot of preparation, and a lot of time and money so it is very important that you do not waste your resources by making the wrong choices. This makes it even more important to approach a reliable SharePoint consultant prior to the deployment of SharePoint solutions.

Furthermore, if you work with the right SharePoint consultancy, they will help you deploy the solution within your organisation in the most cost effective way. Today, every business is striving hard to keep their overhead costs low so it is worth investing in the right SharePoint consultancy services to help you save a great deal of money.

All the above benefits however depend totally on the choice of your SharePoint consultant. If you choose to work with the wrong SharePoint consultant, one with inadequate experience, then you won’t realise all the benefits above, and you will only end up wasting your money.

Every company is moving towards automation of their core functionalities to increase their efficiency. When they try to automate their functionalities using business management software, every company will go through a formal or informal brainstorming session to identify the best business management software. Here are a few factors that you should take into consideration in your brainstorming session.

• Reliability of the software – first of all the business management software that you choose should be a reliable product. In other words, the business management software tool that you choose should be compatible with your industry, and your business needs should be effectively met. You should have a highly stable platform so that your operations are not stalled frequently.
• Deployment difficulties – the business management software that you choose should be easy to deploy. You should be able to deploy your business management software in a seamless fashion. Beware - not all business management software products are easy to deploy.
• Hardware and software upgrades required – you must also take into consideration any additional hardware or software upgrades that may be required before the new solution is implemented. This will affect your implementation time as well as cost.
• Additional in-house training required – not all business management software solutions are simple and straightforward. Some of the software solutions available will require your staff to have special training. This can disrupt your regular operations if the training required is extensive. Choose business management software tools with a minimum learning curve.
• Ease of use – you must check how easy to use the business management software you choose. The whole idea of deploying business management software solutions is to make your life easy. If you end up with complicated business management software products, your efficiency will only be pulled down rather than being enhanced.
• Cost – consider only solutions that fit your budget. Finding the right business management software at the right price is one of the most challenging parts. Your requirements should not be compromised in an effort to find solutions within your budget.
• On-going maintenance and upgrades required - some of the business management software products that you choose may require ongoing maintenance and upgrades, whereas others will just require onetime deployment and learning. It is best to choose business management software that does not require any future maintenance although upgrades may be necessary to enhance the existing functionalities of the software.
• Support available – the business management software product that you choose should have good customer support. You may not be able to troubleshoot all the problems by yourself and you should have a platform where you can escalate any issues that you may come across.

When you consider all these factors carefully, you will be able to identify the best business management software. Never rush to select your business management software because deployment of such solutions will both be time consuming and expensive. It is imperative that you make the right choice first time.

Many companies spend a lot of money, time and energy in deploying SharePoint solutions across their organisation. In the beginning the entire organisation will be highly enthusiastic about their SharePoint deployment but over a period of time, interest will fade away and people will show very little or no interest in using all the features of SharePoint. In some organisations, the learning curve may take a little longer than it should due to various reasons, including the age group of the staff, their general morale, their openness to new ideas and projects etc. If the learning process takes too long, then people can get discouraged even before they have fully grasped the concepts of SharePoint. So it is very important to keep the entire team well motivated throughout the process to achieve the best results. Even if one or two show disinterest, they can demoralise the entire team.

Many organisations fail to use SharePoint to its fullest potential and are thereby failing to achieve the highest level of efficiency that could possibly be achieved with the help of SharePoint. To keep the fire burning, it will not be a bad idea to invest a few hours each month on refresher sessions, at least for the initial few months until everyone feels comfortable with SharePoint. These sessions will also serve as a platform where employees can air their difficulties and problems that they are facing whilst using SharePoint in their day today activities and get solutions to their problems from other members that can handle SharePoint better.

The level of learning and the level of comfort using SharePoint should increase each month. Unless there is a follow up system that keeps track of the progress, it is not possible to see incremental growth in this area. Successful SharePoint deployment is not just about spending a lot of money on the process, nor is it about hiring the best company for the deployment - the major portion of the success depends on how well you respond to SharePoint deployment as an organisation.

You will get the best value for the money you spend on SharePoint deployment only when you and your team fully make use of all the functionalities and features of SharePoint. Otherwise, you will only get partial benefit from the deployment. This is the folly of many organisations that deploy SharePoint and you should not follow suit.

Try to get guidance from your SharePoint deployment company as they would have come across a variety of situations and a number of bottlenecks. They will be able to help you make use of SharePoint to its optimum level. As long as the company that you hire to deploy SharePoint is an experienced service provider, they will be able to highlight not only the basic functionalities that you can use but also some of the advanced features that will increase your organisation’s efficiency. This again goes back to finding the best SharePoint deployment company and how well motivated you are as an organisation.

Before deploying SharePoint in your organisation, you should consider all the deployment options that you have. You will have to review whether you will be able to handle the deployment of SharePoint within your organisation in-house, using your own team of IT staff. Every organisation considers this option at least once during the decision making process. There are a number of factors that trigger this thought: one of the most important factors that comes to people’s minds is the cost involved in using a SharePoint consultant or a SharePoint consultancy service. In their basic research about SharePoint deployment, people enquire about the cost involved in hiring SharePoint consultancy services and they think that by using their own in-house team they will be able to save a considerable amount of money. They also try to justify their decision by looking further into the future. They calculate the future expenses involved in terms of any upgrades they may make with their SharePoint versions. All these considerations almost fully convince them to go for the deployment of SharePoint with the help of an in-house team.

Another factor that organisations consider is that of security and confidentiality. When they make use of an in-house team, they will not have to give access to any third parties and the integrity of data will never be compromised in any way.

However, the above approach is not without problems. If you want to have an in-house team to deploy SharePoint, you need to be fully confident of your team’s skills. They should be highly experienced in deploying SharePoint for similar industries in the past. Thirdly, they should also be capable of training the entire organisation on the day-to-day operations. Fourthly, if things should go wrong, your in-house team should be able to troubleshoot and give you proper solutions quickly without wasting any time. SharePoint deployment is just not a one day show. You should take into consideration your ongoing needs and requirements. Only when you are 100% sure that you are fully covered for all possible eventualities in the future, you should opt for SharePoint deployment using in-house resources.

Another factor that you should take into consideration here is that your existing IT staff may not be able to give their best on their regular projects if you are going to use them on SharePoint deployment. If you need to hire new IT staff to handle SharePoint deployment, then you would have to provide the new staff with the required infrastructure and also handle all the other payroll formalities.

In order to avoid such issues and hassles most organisations prefer to work with third party companies for their SharePoint deployment. This way they ensure that they get Microsoft certified specialists to deploy SharePoint across the organisation. Even in the case of any support related problems and issues, they will be fully covered. Hiring an experienced SharePoint deployment company will help their organisation with a seamless integration of SharePoint.

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.

82% of housing departments and associations have stated that mobile working is a priority for them in 2010, yet only 38% have a mobile working strategy in place.

 Integration with other IT applications is the main bug bear faced by housing departments in developing a mobile working strategy. Applications such as Micrsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be intergrated with a mobile IT solution, such as Dynamic Forms. However, according to the poll, the greatest benefits in implementing a mobile working strategy are to provide flexible and innovative ways of working for housing staff (33%) and higher service to citizens (36%).

Housing associations face immense challenges (NHF, 2009). These range from being able to generate tangible savings in 2010, improving ways of working for staff and enhancing service for citizens. Housing associations are coming around to the idea that mobile working strategies can deliver innovative, yet practical, ways of solving these challenges.

An example of mobile working initiative is to give field staff handheld devices to carry out updates on repairs and timesheets while they are out visiting customers which are logged on completion. Immediate benefits in achieving efficiency improvements.  In addition to reducing levels of manual data entry, fuel and inventory costs will decrease and there have been significant gains in productivity.

Housing Associations belong in the community, not behind a desk. Many housing organisations are already reaping the rewards of today’s technologies. According to the Future Work Forum, one in three UK workers does at least part of their work each week away from their desk. Millions of working hours each day are spent working in the community, undertaking surveys, assessing houses fit for purpose.  With growing awareness of flexible and remote working, the challenge is to enable workers in the field, or at remote locations, to be as productive and efficient as they possibly can be in the housing sector.

One part of the solution is to deploy mobile technology to provide the housing sector workers with access to job-related information wherever they are based. The potential benefits of mobile working are positively compelling: the UK government estimates the public sector could save up to £336 million a year through mobile technology.  These savings would be generated through reduced office costs, efficiency savings, service improvement and improved quality of data.

Rob Bamforth, research analyst with Quocirca stated that “the ‘real’ work is outside the office” meaning that housing associations could benefit enormously from mobile working. “Providing access to IT on the move saves time, and therefore makes the individual more productive.”

For example, the London Borough of Sutton achieved 47% efficiency savings when it provided staff with tablet PCs to record the results of interviews. Computerising the process has reduced errors and also means the results can be processed more easily – a typical house survey can now be processes in less than one week, compared to five weeks previously.

In Sheffield, 84 local councillors have been provided with PDA’s allowing them to electronically record requests, complaints and repairs, which are automatically sent back to the council’s contact centre. This system saves each councillor around three hours per week in paperwork and administration, translating into a major financial saving for the council.

Achieving the benefits of mobile computing isn’t always straightforward. One of the biggest challenges with mobile computing deployment is a lack of knowledge and a lack of planning. Local authorities can access expert advice and support for mobile project from igroup ltd, which has successfully completed a number of mobile projects in the housing sector/ public sector.

The only competitive advantage remaining today for any business, irrespective of what industry you’re in, irrespective of where you reside on this planet, is the ability to obtain and act on information ahead of your competition. No matter what business you’re in, whether it's oil and gas, whether you’re in healthcare, whether you’re a logistics company, it doesn’t make any difference. Your ability to get information into the hands of people who need that information, and enable them to act on and interact with that information before the competition can is what's going to make a difference in terms of business success.  So that should be a good motivator for you to start thinking about mobilising people. If they are out and about, working with customers directly involved in business activities, they need access to your network, they need access to IT resources, and they need to do it faster than the competition can. 

Core Objectives for Contemporary Mobility

 Minimise, if not eliminate, the behavioural and performance differences that exist between wire line and wireless capabilities: 

• Throughput

• Reliability/Availability

• Access to applications and data  

Wireless can do anything that wire can do, and without the need to find a place to plug in: 

• Location-independence, virtual office

• Any application Extending mobile user base beyond service, sales, vertical markets, etc. 

The Future of IT…is in mobility 

• Mobilising all enterprise IT services and capabilities

• Wireless as the default or even primary vehicle

• Advances in technologies, standards, networks, devices

• As with wire (and just about everything else in business), the key is management

• Maximise productivity – ease of use, transparency

• Reduce costs – time saving, administration costs etc.   

Mobile computing: powering public service

Today’s technologies support workers on-site through suites of products devoted to connectivity, security and productivity.

According to the Future Work Forum, one in three UK workers does at least part of their work each week away from the office. Millions of working hours each day are spent working in the community, travelling to meetings and remote offices, or working from home. It’s a scenario that’s especially familiar to anyone working in the public sector, says Nick Umney, a technical specialist working in Microsoft’s Public Sector team. “Today, very few people spend five days a week working at a desk in the office, particularly with the growing awareness of flexible and remote working,” he says. “The challenge is how we enable those workers in the field, or at remote locations, to be as productive and efficient as they possibly can.” 

 The ‘Real’ work is outside the office

One part of the solution is to deploy mobile technology to provide public sector workers with access to job-related information wherever they are based. The potential benefits of mobile working are certainly compelling: the UK government estimates the public sector could save up to £336 million a year through mobile working. These savings would be generated through reduced office costs, efficiency savings, service improvement and improved data quality. “I agree that the public sector could benefit enormously from mobile working because for many roles, the ‘real’ work is outside the office,” says Rob Bamforth, a research analyst with Quocirca. “Providing access to IT on the move saves time, and therefore makes the individual more productive.”For example, the London Borough of Sutton achieved 47% efficiency savings when it provided finance staff with tablet PCs to record the results of home-based interviews with individuals requesting financial support. Staff used specially designed forms on the tablet PCs to record vital details, and generated the required paperwork for an application on the spot. Computerising the process has reduced errors and also means the results can be processed more easily – a typical application can now be assessed in less than one week, compared to five weeks previously. In Sheffield, 84 local councillors have been provided with handheld computers that allow them to electronically record requests and complaints from citizens, which are automatically sent back to the council’s contact centre. The system saves each councillor around three hours per week in paperwork and administration, translating into a major financial saving for the council.  

See how Dynamic Forms can help your business and increase productivity in the field: www.dynamic-forms.net                  www.igroupltd.co.uk  

On Wednesday 28th October igroupltd are being joined by Microsoft and Accenture to conduct a FREE seminar centred around mobile computing, mobility, mobile field data collection and SharePoint.

BOOK YOUR FREE PLACE NOW. Either follow the link or email: seminars@igroupltd.co.uk, call: 0845 838 2184. Visit us at http://www.igroupltd.co.uk/ / www.dynamic-forms.net/Pages/Home.aspx

 Book before the 5th October and recieve a Free White Paper on Mobile Computing!

GUEST SPEAKERS Peter Daley, senior manager in Accenture’s Mobile Solutions practice, will be givign a talk on enterprise mobility, industry trends, mobile computing and where the market is going. Peter is responsible for Accenture’s European Field Force Transformation offering, using mobile technology and business change to drive increased effectiveness for distributed workforces. In addition, Jessica Meats Microsoft's Partner Technology Specialist in SharePoint and InfoPath, who focuses on business processes and forms.

iGroup Ltd is microsoft dynamics certified and is proud to be able to offer a CRM trial. This allows a guest user to see log into a demo version of CRM and have a look at how it could benefit their business.

Please apply at the following URL for your CRM Trial.

http://www.igroupltd.co.uk/Download/Pages/CRM-Trial.aspx