We just publised a new Industry Watch Report titled, “The SharePoint Puzzle – Adding the missing pieces.” The study, based on the responses from 551 organizations, identified a lack of expertise, lack of strategic plans and resistance from users as the top three most prevalent business issues associated with SharePoint. But despite these concerns, most organizations are planning to increase or maintain the level of SharePoint spend on internal development, integration to other repositories, training, add-ons, hardware, services and licenses over the next 12 months.
Downloads are free and HERE.
The research investigates why organizations selected SharePoint and how it has performed against expectations; identifies gaps in enterprise content management (ECM), collaboration and business process management (BPM); and explores how organizations are adding missing pieces with SharePoint add-ons, third-party extensions and cloud services.
For most organizations SharePoint is considered a technology responsibility. The study found that 68 percent of SharePoint implementation decisions are made by the CIO or IT manager despite the fact that a single system is more often deployed across the enterprise, establishing SharePoint as highly-integrated business system when compared to most enterprise systems.
CEOs who view SharePoint as a technology tool rather than a business platform should reconsider. The research points to the need for a company strategy and executive vision in order to get the most business benefit from a SharePoint implementation. A successful SharePoint implementation calls for executives to engage with IT to drive effective collaboration across business units that maps to the organizational culture.
The top reasons given for SharePoint selection include internal collaboration, file share replacement and the creation of an intranet or portal. Unfortunately, SharePoint is still considered to be difficult to use. Organizations pointed to ease of content migration and information governance as two desired capabilities still lacking in SharePoint. Specific issues with metadata and taxonomies were cited by 41 percent. In these cases, investment in user training could likely help resolve issues.
Certain aspects of SharePoint functionality, including internal collaboration and document management, for the most part meet more than half of respondents’ expectations, yet a third of users complain about records management, email management and social tools. The findings point to the need for IT, end-users and management to be involved in the planning of a deployment, since without users’ contributions early on, success can be quickly derailed once the system is up and running.
The research indicates SharePoint will continue to dominate the market due to a growing appreciation for the software as a platform, and additional third-party add-ons will enhance capabilities to meet specific business needs. For the business success of SharePoint, however, there needs to be a careful orchestration of corporate strategy, end-user ownership, IT implementation and third-party enhancement.
The full report, “The SharePoint Puzzle – Adding the missing pieces” can be downloaded from the AIIM website at www.aiim.org/research/sharepoint-2012. The research was underwritten by Adlib, Axceler, EMC, Kofax, Knowledge Lake, IBM, Igloo Software, OpenText, Portal Solutions and QorusDocs. Since they sponsored the study (we appreciate it), I thought a little background on each was in order...
About Adlib -- Adlib is the leading expert in document-to-PDF transformation that is seamlessly integrated with Microsoft SharePoint to reduce the financial exposure and risk of non-compliance with regulatory agencies; reduce IT costs by centralizing document transformation; and leveraging content-to-PDF as a shared service across the enterprise. Adlib is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner. www.adlibsoftware.com
About Axceler -- Axceler solutions enable enterprises to simplify, optimize and secure their collaborative platforms. Axceler is a global leader in solutions for SharePoint governance, security, migration, reporting and analysis. These include awarding-winning ControlPoint for governance and administration, Davinci Migrator for migration to SharePoint 2010, and FileLoader for migrating file share content. www.axceler.com
About EMC -- EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect, and analyze their most valuable asset—information—in a more agile, trusted, and cost-efficient way. www.EMC.com
About IBM ECM -- IBM ECM helps companies make better decisions faster by managing content, optimizing associated business processes and enabling compliance through an integrated information infrastructure. www.ibm.com/software/ecm
About Igloo Software -- Igloo develops social business solutions for your employees, your partners and your customers - securely stored and delivered in the cloud. As a standalone social business suite or as a complement to your SharePoint implementation, Igloo enables a more agile and open approach to collaboration at work. www.igloosoftware.com
About KnowledgeLake -- KnowledgeLake develops document imaging, document capture, and workflow products and solutions for Microsoft SharePoint. KnowledgeLake extends the Electronic Content Management (ECM) capabilities of SharePoint, enabling businesses to reduce mailing costs, streamline operations, and achieve regulatory compliance using familiar Microsoft products. www.knowledgelake.com
About Kofax -- Kofax Capture Enabled BPM™ solutions capture and streamline the flow of business critical information throughout an organization in a more accurate, timely and cost effective manner, enabling customers to be more responsive to their constituents, gain a competitive advantage and better grow their businesses. www.kofax.com
About OpenText -- OpenText is the leader in enterprise information management. EIM enables organizations to grow the business, lower costs, and accelerate business responsiveness, while ensuring governance and security. OpenText helps more than 50 thousand global customers build digital enterprises by unleashing the power of information. www.opentext.com
About Portal Solutions -- Portal Solutions help organizations share what they know and find what they need by connecting people, data, and content. The company focuses on what drives user adoption to create solutions that people love to use. Our services span the development lifecycle -- Advisory Services, User Experience Services, and Implementation Services. www.portalsolutions.net
About Qorus Software -- Qorus Software is a provider of document automation solutions for SharePoint. Qorus software extends SharePoint and Microsoft Word and PowerPoint functionality to significantly reduce the time and effort required to customise and generate documents and presentations, such as sales proposals, financial reports, contracts, and advisory reports. www.qorusdocs.com
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