SharePoint has successfully completed 17 years as one of the world’s most popular intranet platforms and one of the most widely adopted Microsoft technology solutions among enterprises. With SharePoint, organizations can build intranets with great business and team collaboration features. Even after all these years, Microsoft is still betting on SharePoint to stand its ground…and it is.
SharePoint has been augmented by the tech giant with various enhancements for the past couple of years, garnering praise from the community while accelerating the demand for SharePoint development services. Surprisingly, however, not all opinions on SharePoint are positive. It could be the polarized opinions that are making many business decision-makers doubt the platform’s corporate intranet capabilities.
To dispel such doubts, we will explore the major pros and cons of SharePoint intranet in this blog.
Fact: SharePoint has a rich set of features and out-of-the-box capabilities
Pro: SharePoint’s sheer number of features is itself a big merit of the platform. The features can ensure workflow management, enterprise-wide collaboration, content and document management etc. The users essentially get to complete their tasks faster and with much less effort. AI-fueled content collaboration and personalized experiences tailored with the help of AI makes SharePoint a fantastic tool for enterprises.
Con: The number of features can be considered a con of SharePoint as well due to the fact that it can make things quiet messy. For starters, it will be harder for a business to determine what all features of SharePoint will suit their needs. Not prioritizing them and enabling them all will result in an intranet that would do more harm than good; hindering user activities being the best case scenario.
Fact: SharePoint offers deep customizability
Pro: Not all businesses rely on SharePoint’s out-of-the-box features simply because of the fact that said features may not fit a specific business context or meet a specific business objective. However, SharePoint intranet can be appropriately customized – embedding corporate branding, developing custom add-ons, building solutions to perform specific activities etc. As a matter of fact, it’s quite simple to create a unique SharePoint solution that covers a range of processes. All it takes is a set of smart templates and a few clicks.
Con: The customizability of SharePoint is certainly a great merit. But such customizations tend to demand a lot of time and investments. Intranet customization is not something a business can achieve in a fortnight. In addition, the deeper the SharePoint intranet is customized, the bigger the bill.
…which brings us to our final assessment for now.
Fact: SharePoint comes with at least 3 deployment approaches each with different pricing models.
Pro: Commonly chosen SharePoint deployment approaches are on-premises, cloud, and hybrid. Back in the day, SharePoint existed on-premises only. So organizations were required to invest in infrastructure and licenses. Soon after, service charges were added to the bill.
But the advent of the cloud allowed Microsoft to diversify their offerings with a number of cloud plans with varying price tags. SharePoint owners could choose their own pricing model aligned with their budget capabilities.
Con: Just because they get to choose their pricing model doesn’t mean the bill would be any lesser. Cloud intranets do cut intranet costs substantially. But SharePoint deployment itself requires investments. On-premises model requires investments in infrastructure, licenses, and customization. Cloud intranets are more reasonable but come with monthly subscription payments. A hybrid model is a mix of both meaning the organization has to invest in both on-premises and cloud SharePoint.
So is it a good idea to use SharePoint?
The answer to this question, to a great extent, depends on the size of your business, the collaboration your business needs, and obviously your business’ budget for intranet setup. SharePoint intranet is absolutely beneficial for medium to large-sized businesses with multiple teams and offices. Setting up SharePoint would be easier for businesses with a well-rounded IT infrastructure that complements the business’ growth potential.
There are SharePoint experts who can help your business deploy and leverage SharePoint effectively. Though not as big an industry as ASP.NET development services, SharePoint development still has great demand across enterprises who believe in the collaboration-productivity relationship.
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