In
the recent times, there has been a tremendous rise in the Enterprise
adoption of SharePoint. A survey conducted by Global 360, an
organization dealing in document management, has found out that among
the 886 respondents, 90% make use of SharePoint, wherein, SharePoint
2010 is being used by 8%. Strikingly, 67% of the SharePoint users
extend it across the enterprise, implying that SharePoint is not
limited to the IT department but can render support to the other
departments too. Study also reveals that SharePoint
webparts development is on the rise.
The
survey also brings to light the manner in which SharePoint is used by
organizations. It mainly gets started in the form of a content
repository and then transforms into a more dynamic component. It is
seen that 67% of SharePoint users have extended it for document
workflow management while 66% have used SharePoint for web content
and portal management. Again, 56% of the respondents have leveraged
SharePoint for rendering support to business processes. 27% of the
organizations which were surveyed are of the opinion that more than
fifty percent of the documents that are stored within SharePoint are
utilized for supporting vital aspects of business.
In
spite of the widespread adoption of SharePoint coupled with
enhancements in workflow, search and social networking within the
platform, there are certain deployment challenges, as the survey
highlights. Let us discuss three of the major challenges here.
User-experience
is not so out-of-the-box
Out
of the survey respondents only 17.6% are of the opinion that
SharePoint renders an exceptional out-of-the-box user experience
while at the same time sufficiently catering to their requirements.
On the other hand, 78% respondents have described SharePoint as more
or less adequate to inadequate, stating that the platform calls for
additional in-house development and design.
The
biggest challenge in case of implementing SharePoint, as opined by
21% of the respondents, is the absence of conveniently usable,
intuitive interface suitable for business users. Undoubtedly, an
insufficient user interface generally points at trouble. As stated by
the Global 360 report, general user experiences frequently give rise
to slow user acceptance, lesser productivity by users looking for
workarounds to applications which fail to cater to their needs and
soaring costs to customize and rollback applications.
Creating
business applications takes effort and time
So
far as SharePoint is concerned, there have been advances in the
domains of offline access, social media, ERP integration and better
CRM. However, going by the Global 360 report, there is still a huge
difference between the delivered output and what is possible to be
achieved.
Out
of the 60% of survey respondents who have found SharePoint user
experience insufficient, 47% are into creation of custom applications
across the SharePoint environment. This involves lots of time. 30% of
the respondents stated that the foremost challenge in SharePoint
implementation is the time and effort involved in development of the
business applications.
As
per the report, a number of organizations who intend to reduce time,
expertise and resources required for integration of custom apps
within SharePoint are going for third-party applications in order to
add content management, business intelligent and process management
features to SharePoint.
Getting
IT as well as business users over the same page
Outside
of work, employees are exposed to increasingly interactive Web apps
like the different apps of Google and Facebook. This has led to
increased expectation with respect to the enterprise applications.
Owing to this, IT is required to involve users within SharePoint
deployment planning, as the Global 360 report states.
This
may not be always convenient, as there is every possibility of
disconnect between the business and IT users of an enterprise.
However, user feedback obtained early will in due course speed
adoption as well as cut the costs of deploying SharePoint, as stated
by the Global 360 report. It notes that while customizing, purchasing
or planning SharePoint business applications, there should be a
concerted effort by the IT organizations to connect with the business
users who have been targeted with respect to the application.
The
survey majorly based in North America and Europe brings out the
manner in which SharePoint users have adopted the platform as well as
the deployment challenges that they regularly face. If these
challenges are overcome, SharePoint will become a more efficient
platform for businesses.
We
provide sharepoint
bespoke development services. If you would like to know what
makes us expert sharepoint
developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.