What are the SharePoint Alternatives for a Company-wide Intranet?

Microsoft’s SharePoint is a massive and multifaceted web-based platform that is designed to make business communication better and hassle-free. Backed by state-of-the-art technologies, SharePoint is a collaboration and document management tool that is ruling the industry since more than a decade. Moreover, Microsoft is constantly investing in this tool and adding innovative features to make it more effective and viable for businesses. Leveraged by 80% of Fortune 100 companies, SharePoint is an industry proven platform to host your intranet and Content Management System and bring the organization together by making collaboration easy and stress-free.

Here are the following features offered by SharePoint intranet:

Web publishing tools, Content management, Document management, Enterprise search, Video conferencing via Skype, Enterprise wikis, Compliance management, Workflow and basic project management, Enterprise social networking through Yammer, Business Intelligence integration (through Power BI).

SharePoint is a platform that offers a wide array of collaborative features for streamlining communication workflow and promotes easy storage of documents. It can be accessed from anywhere and through any device.

In spite of being flexible, configurable, and scaleable, SharePoint like any other product has certain shorfalls. Here are some of the disadvantages of SharePoint:

Affordability:

When it comes to custom designing an on SharePoint, companies have to spend a lot of time, and money, and hire resources who can configure, update and maintain the system which small and medium-sized businesses may find unaffordable.

Complex functions:

SharePoint’s web infrastructure is quite clunky and complex. It is true that SharePoint is a one-stop solution for a variety of communication and collaboration problems; however, it is very difficult for a common person to use these intricate features. Moreover, in this ever-growing and dynamic corporate world, all that a business owner wants is intuitive and user-friendly platform that can help them to collaborate in a hassle free manner. Many successful organizations that use SharePoint have to approach a certified professional who can make the most of these dynamic SharePoint features and help them to evolve.

High-maintenance required- As mentioned above, SharePoint has an intricate and complex architecture, thus it takes plenty of time and requires many resources to maintain and update it. According to Osterman Research’s survey of min-market IT executives, 43% of organizations found the initial rollout complicated and 46% of them found managing the updates a difficult task.  

Uninformed business decision – Since SharePoint has become an enormously popular collaborative tool, many businesses opt for it without assessing their needs first. Soon they realize that the solution is too complex and vast. This leads to dissatisfaction and underutilization, which results in wasted efforts and investment.  

Here are some of the SharePoint alternatives

In this tech-driven world where businesses are producing volumes of data every day, the requirement of Office 365 intranet solutions has increased greatly. Nowadays, almost every business requires an intranet where employees can communicate, collaborate, store documents, and share information with each other through a single platform. If all you need is document storage, sharing, and collaborative authoring, there are lots of tools that you can choose from.

Dropbox – This is a document storage platform that promotes teamwork. It empowers the employees to manage documents and photos, send videos quickly, and work on slides together.

Google for work – This is part of Google’s suite of productivity apps that makes internal communication easy. It is an affordable alternative to SharePoint that is used by many businesses. It makes these tasks easy – email and chat archiving, video conferencing, survey and form creation, file search and so on.

Box for business – This is a productive collaboration platform that offers security, project management tools, version control tools, file sharing and so on.

All of these products are popular but offer limited functionality. If you are looking for a user-friendly team collaboration and document management platform then these tools may be your solution. However, if in the future, your resources increase and you need something multifaceted and complexed, then this might not be an ideal pick for you.

Get the most out of SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint has been evolving since its inception. There are a myriad of collaboration features and communication tools that are being introduced in this web platform. This is the reason why so many businesses are inclined towards investing heavily in this cutting-edge web application. However, if you are someone who is looking for an alternative just because of SharePoint’s complexity, intricacy, looks and vastness, then switching to another platform can be an expensive option. So, instead of switching to another tool, opt for augmentation! This can be done by enhancing SharePoint with a ready-to-go intranet that is easy to use, looks appealing and encompasses many other innovative features.

Here are some of the benefits of augmenting SharePoint with a ready-to-go intranet:

1. Reduced cost – most of the subscription models are cost-effective and economical.

2. Easy implementation – the intranet will be up and running in a few weeks and not months.

3. Mobile access – You can access it from anywhere and at any time. Plus, it can be accessed from any handheld device, laptop or desktop.

4. Free updates – upgrades are automatic and thus, it keeps you updated with the latest versions.

5. Customized look – Its look can be customized as per your corporate branding and organizational structure.

6. Security – Every company strives hard to maintain the security of data. By investing in an out-of-the-box intranet, you get enterprise level security as it is housed on Microsoft servers.

Conclusion:

Needless to say, SharePoint is one of the most productive and suggested platforms for hosting your intranet. Businesses should make sure to evaluate their specific requirements, manage their budget and thereafter make an ideal decision that fits their needs.

Shivani Shelke

Shivani Shelke is a well-versed writer who is passionate about writing on a variety of topics such as technology, entrepreneurship, communication, Office 365 intranet and so on.