Many businesses are using the Microsoft 365 Office suite of products, including SharePoint. However, they’re likely also using other file-sharing apps like Box, DropBox, and Google Drive.
Why so many solutions for the same thing? We believe in working smarter, not harder. That’s why we’ve compiled the top three advantages to aligning with SharePoint.
- Make things easier for your employees. If you’re using M365, that means end users have access to a multitude of productivity and collaboration tools including Outlook for email, Word, Excel, Teams, Yammer, and more. They’re already integrated into a unified digital workspace, so why ask employees to constantly switch among apps?
- Make things easier for your IT team. Most tech teams are overstretched just dealing with cybersecurity. If they’re already trained on M365, then why train and certify someone — or possibly several IT members —on a separate file-sharing application like Box or Google Drive? In addition, the Microsoft 365 ecosystem comes with security protections baked in. In most cases, for example, it’s easy for IT teams to simply wrap compliance policies around sensitive data — or end users who tend to work with it — in SharePoint.
- Not having to pay twice for the same thing. Why pay for Box or Google Drive, for example, in addition to your M365 licensing? Shadow IT — in which an individual or business department spins up their own instance of a file-sharing solution — shouldn’t be a reason for supporting multiple similar apps. They may be buying their own cloud tools because they don’t have the correct permissions or access to SharePoint. In addition to overpaying for technology, Shadow IT opens up risks around security and compliance.
Now that we’ve addressed the reasons to align with SharePoint, let’s explore why you should migrate to use of SharePoint in the Microsoft Azure cloud.
Why “lift and shift” tends to be the wrong approach
We’ve heard many companies say they want to do a lift-and-shift migration of SharePoint from on-premises to the cloud – without any customization or refactoring. The most commonly cited reason is that they just want to get it done, and fast.
In fact, a lift-and-shift is often the most expensive, longest-duration approach. That’s because any of the issues your IT team didn’t address with the on-prem SharePoint version will be the same in the cloud. The problems become compounded by not having access to the online server to troubleshoot or customize around users’ needs.
We typically see that lift-and-shift delays problems for 12 to 18 months before organizations have to clean up issues like access, permissions, and folders. This is the residual result of years — and sometimes decades — of permissions being managed at the sub-folder level, or even 14 sub-folders down.
Which leads us to another significant advantage of migrating SharePoint to the Microsoft Azure cloud: This is your chance to reimagine the future state. Especially considering today’s world of hybrid work and remote access, we advocate for building systems without any of the old permissions. Doing so reduces cost and complexity, expedites the move, and improves the end user experience.
Another advantage for end users: Using SharePoint in the cloud enables multiple individuals to work on the same document at the same time, while eliminating the need for VPN access. It’s a productivity booster.
Meanwhile, cloud-native technology helps reduce the time it takes for IT teams to integrate SharePoint with other apps, troubleshoot logs, and rebuild user profiles.
Stay tuned for our next blog, in which we examine the other tools in the M365 toolbox.
Get our full take on SharePoint and Microsoft 365 by listening to a recent episode of our SecureChat podcast. Listen here.