For small businesses, the right IT solutions can make a world of difference. SharePoint Online can provide SMBs with a wealth of functionality to support their work.
Since SharePoint became integrated into Microsoft 365 as an online service, it went from being a solution only available to medium to large sized businesses (MLB), to being available to all businesses. For small to medium sized businesses (SMB) this new cloud solution was a game changer. SharePoint Online has continued to help smaller businesses in many ways. We discussed this with TechQuarters, a managed service provider and Microsoft Partner based around London. Having provided IT support Guildford and London based small businesses have been using since 2010, they were able to discuss some of the different ways that they can use SharePoint Online to generate value and make their work easier.
What is SharePoint Online for Your Business?
No doubt most people in the professional sphere understand what SharePoint Online is on paper – it is a cloud-based platform primarily intended for storage and file management. However, in terms of the potential that it has, the question ‘What is SharePoint Online?’ really depends on what an organisation wants to do with it. As SharePoint providers for more than 10 years, TechQuarters has seen many of the different use-cases for the platform – below are some examples that they gave:
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A Centralised Hub
As a cloud solution, SharePoint Online is permanently centralised, and always available for those with an internet connection. As most people will know, SharePoint is great for storing files and documents. But, it is also great for sharing information – such as news, articles, resources, etc. It can also be used to develop cloud workflows for the business. So, essentially, SharePoint Online is a hub for business that is available anywhere, at any time.
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A Collaboration Platform
Since the onset of COVID-19, businesses have been prioritising digital collaboration for their employees. For businesses that are in need of online collaboration solutions, SharePoint Online can be an ideal platform to integrate. As part of Microsoft 365, SharePoint Online is also linked to OneDrive for Business (a personal cloud storage solution), and documents created with Microsoft 365 are – by default – saved to OneDrive. This makes it easy for users to then share their documents to colleagues via SharePoint. Furthermore, SharePoint Sites can have files and content uploaded to the directly, where they can be worked on by multiple users. Version control in SharePoint also ensures that documents are managed properly during collaboration.
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A Secure Document Management System
SharePoint Online works great for company document management. One of the key reasons why it is suitable is that it is not only convenient, but highly secure. TechQuarters has provided IT support Financial Services companies use, and has much experience working with various security and compliance conscious businesses. The good thing about SharePoint is that it is compliant with GDPR, and has a number of tools, resources, and integrations that will help organisations remain compliant with their industries’ regulations.
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An Enterprise Intranet
An intranet can be a highly useful tool for a business. It helps to empower employees to seek and share information with the entire organisation; it can help to boost communication within and between departments. It helps to make team collaboration more focused and streamlined; and it makes day-to-day processes across the organisation more streamlined and easier to manage. Thanks to the structure of SharePoint Online – i.e. the use of different sites to support different types of work and processes within the organisation – it can be leveraged to create an enterprise-level intranet for even small businesses.
