Imagine that looking for a document in mail attachments, hard drives, shared network drives, Google Drive, team sites, project sites, etc., can get quite tedious and frustrating. Now imagine all the documents in one place – ready to be viewed, edited or even shared in a few clicks. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the benefits of SharePoint for document management.
Documents are one of the most important aspects of any business. The seamless acquisition, storage, and distribution of documents within and outside the company can play a crucial role in determining your company’s success.
Documents are one of the most important aspects of any business. The seamless acquisition, storage, and distribution of documents within and outside the company can play a crucial role in determining your company’s success.
That said, many companies do not effectively manage documents. This often overlooked aspect might be hindering the growth of your business. The more scattered the documents are across the company, the more unproductive and disgruntled the employees would be.
The benefits of SharePoint for document management are many. SharePoint can help improve productivity, minimise costs, reduce frustration, and ensure your business’s data integrity. But that’s not it.
Read on to understand the advantages of SharePoint as an intelligent investment for your business (regardless of its size) and how it can help you transform your company from the inside out.
1. Document management and collaboration
Well-informed employees make better decisions, meet deadlines, and contribute productively to the company’s overall objective.
The ability to view revisions to documents, restore previous versions, control document access, etc., are some of the few enhanced document management capabilities that come with SharePoint.
More advantages of sharepoint include a direct and intelligent approach to sharing, editing, and reviewing documents in real-time.
As a result, you don’t need to sift through lengthy trail mails to find a document, which saves you time and resources.
2. Multipurpose functionality
The most significant benefits of SharePoint for document management are its unmatched flexibility.
As a DMS, CMS, Intranet, and more, SharePoint can help you meet all of your internal requirements. Depending on the user’s status, administrators can assign different permission levels. Apart from document sharing, the software has features for document sharing, file management, social networking, task scheduling, and nearly everything related to your day-to-day operations.
3. Centralised administration
If you’re in charge of your company’s SharePoint solution, you may occasionally need to alter the setup. With such a large platform, you’d think this would be a significant hassle. However, SharePoint includes a central administration console that makes the entire process easy as 1-2-3.
Rather than clicking around to multiple pages, administrators can quickly access and monitor operating functions like security settings, backup sites, site data, update access, restore date and more seamlessly through a single dashboard.
4. Highly customisable
You can start using SharePoint out-of-the-box or customise it according to your business requirements. Your team will be able to build custom components for each feature offered by SharePoint. They can even use drag and drop functionality to modify the entire UI to suit your company’s branding or design it to improve the working experience of your team.
5. Integration with your existing apps
Whether it’s a legacy enterprise system or a third-party app that your organisation uses, SharePoint offers seamless integration with any application. You can integrate SharePoint with other back-office applications such as CRM, ERP, or other project management software and Office 365 or Microsoft Exchange Server.
Also, when it comes to SharePoint Online, the compatibility is not just limited to Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge. The software supports and works well on all modern browsers.
6. Enhanced security
Your documents are secure with SharePoint, always. You can assign the Security settings to the individual level where, for example, you can share a file with private information only with a single employee; or apply it to a folder so that you or other employees can share it with an external vendor.
Storage and auditing policies can also be assigned so that your organisation maintains business compliance while managing and effectively controlling critical information. Even if strict compliance measures do not apply to your organisation, you can still set controls on information access within your company.
7. Improve productivity
Employees often spend hours digging through the archives to find a file. From filing cabinets to an endless sea of folders, looking for a particular file can be a mind-numbing task even for the most dedicated employee.
The benefits of SharePoint for document management come in handy during such instances. Once SharePoint consolidates all the documents, you need a few clicks to look up a file. Employees will be able to work concurrently, send and receive data, track and manage documents, and converse in real-time.
After all, when employees are not running around in circles looking for the information they need, they can allocate more time to their primary responsibilities.
8. Seamless content management
Businesses often work behind the scenes to optimise their content strategy. For companies to be successful, their internal teams should be able to approve, amend, and provide feedback promptly.
With SharePoint, users can generate content and submit it for approval within seconds. SharePoint’s social networking capabilities make it easier for teams to collaborate, share ideas, or deliver updates. They can access the files on their laptops and mobile devices or even convert them into different formats such as PDF, Excel, Word etc.
9. Easy to use
The success of your company’s business depends on its ability to be technically competent and relevant as times change. As a result, you will have to develop advanced solutions to fulfil the needs of your employees and customers.
With SharePoint, you don’t have to worry about being outdated because your coding capabilities are limited. One of the main benefits of SharePoint is that it allows you to press ahead without needing a degree in computer science. Whether you can develop websites from scratch, update your existing one, or create a specialised tool for your team, you can effortlessly do so with SharePoint.
10. Streamline business process
Consider the workflows you use to handle your day-to-day business operations. How does your company initiate, manage, and report routine tasks like getting approvals, collecting feedback, tracking issues, etc.?
SharePoint comes loaded with innovative workflows that automate these tasks. The software makes it easy for you to share documents, interact with team members, collect information from vendors, communicate with customers, etc. Capabilities like these enable businesses to make informed decisions, track market trends and anticipate fluctuations in demand.
You can even integrate these features into client applications, email apps and browsers for a simple and seamless user experience.
11. Site consolidation
With SharePoint, you can now consolidate your shared work environments into a single platform and reduce the costs of siloed website management. The consolidation helps your company’s internal teams quickly access and manage the company’s internet and intranet websites.
12. Powerful Search Functionality
If you need to look up a piece of information online, we use a search engine. SharePoint’s search functionality cuts down the time spent searching for files so your employees can dedicate time to other essential tasks.
Conclusion
From Fortune 500 companies to start-ups, companies worldwide choose SharePoint as their preferred document management and collaboration software. If you aspire to join their ranks, integrating SharePoint into your business would be an essential step.
The benefits of SharePoint for document management don’t end there. SharePoint comes with various features designed to make collaboration as successful as possible. The cost savings alone will make SharePoint a worthwhile investment in the long run.
Here at Neologix, we love helping businesses connect their teams and improve their bottom line. If you’re keen to find out more about the benefits of SharePoint and how it can transform your business, just get in touch. Our experts will assess your existing infrastructure and build your organisation a customised solution that will quickly help you achieve your business goals.
