Efficiency raises productivity and reduces costs and it depends greatly on having the right tools and processes in place. Is your IT helping your team to work efficiently?
For many businesses, SharePoint has become an integral part of how they build good processes and empower employees to work smartly. So can this platform make such a positive impact for you?
What is SharePoint?
SharePoint was designed as the ultimate collaboration tool, pulling together many apps to offer a broad functionality to boosts productivity. It’s a platform that allows teams and businesses to create, organise, store and share information so that data can be managed effectively.
It also allows teams to create workflows and databases to create processes and deliver information and insights while offering communication tools to ease collaboration.
All this is done on the Cloud so it’s accessible to more people when needed, from remote locations and on many different kinds of device.
Efficiency driving features of SharePoint
SharePoint has many features to support productivity. Putting them on a single platform is what makes it so effective:
Apps
Its broad range of apps enables teams to do more, enhanced further when these tools combine to create a one-stop shop for integrated productivity tools. There’s no need to search for solutions outside the platform, which takes time and may result in trying to use a mix of incompatible apps, disrupting the work and information flow.
The Cloud
Being Cloud-based offers efficiency advantages. Access to SharePoint from anywhere lets teams work efficiently together even when offsite. Software is updated automatically, leading to less susceptibility to cyber-attack and crashes and preventing unnecessary downtime. Information and data are also stored in a secure location and less likely to be lost after an IT incident, whether criminal or accidental.
Information and data management
Data and information Management are made easy as user access is controlled; information is safer when stored on SharePoint.
With all data in one place, SharePoint’s powerful analytical tools can be used to analyse it, revealing insights to enable businesses to identify productivity issues or opportunities.
Data can also be organised with tags for a more accurate and effective filing system, making it easy to retrieve. It also traces the history of document edits, so changes can be tracked, and progress monitored in any single document. Apart from facilitating collaboration, it’s more time-efficient when users can work on one document rather than having to pull edits together from several versions.
Customised
SharePoint is highly customisable so that organisations can tailor it to the specific needs of a team by creating a wide variety of solutions that can be integrated into existing processes. Intranets, document management systems and knowledge management are examples of just some of the types of solutions that can be created. It can also be branded to encourage engagement through a greater connection to an in-house version of the platform.
Workflow
Manual processes can be automated in SharePoint and streamlined by creating a workflow. These can be simple or complex processes for which a workflow is created, but they help to ensure that processes are followed and understood. Reducing mistakes that need to be corrected later. Workflows can be created for processes such as putting signatures on documents, gaining feedback, tracking status, getting approval, etc.
Communication
Whether one-to-one or communicating with an entire organisation, the range of tools enables communication through voice calls, video conferencing, instant messaging, email, interactive feeds etc. Intranet and external websites can also be created in SharePoint to enable resources and information to be shared among a wider audience and to increase engagement and collaboration through information sharing.
Building a competitive advantage for your organisation
SharePoint’s ability to simplify a wide range of daily business activities and tasks, and its flexibility in how this is achieved, suiting the working practices of a team, make it a powerful tool.
It has something to offer businesses of all sizes and sectors and is one of the easiest ways to ensure that information is visible and accessible to those who need it.
SharePoint makes teams more productive through collaboration and the creation of effective processes for the individuals and teams who use it. How much your business capitalises on it depends on how much you utilise its full functionality and this relies on awareness and training for users at all levels.
When everyone in your organisation embraces its use, SharePoint can become an integral part of the day-to-day success of your team.
IT training support
If you would like to explore how our team can help your team to get the most from your IT equipment and software, including SharePoint, through group training, one-to-one coaching and consulting services, then contact 365 Training Consultants today.
