With more and more businesses looking to hybridize their workspaces, how can Microsoft SharePoint be leveraged to help them?
Technology and business have intersected in many ways. One of the most recent ways is the emergence of hybrid working – a workplace model where offices integrated technology to connect with remote employees, allowing them to work alongside office-based colleagues. Since many businesses have been calling for a return to the office since the COVID-19 pandemic, hybrid working has been the main solution. But how can it be implemented?
Hybrid working relies on technology – specifically, business productivity solutions that offer tools and resources for digital communication and collaboration. A popular solution of this ilk is Microsoft 365. In particular, SharePoint Online, one of the key products in M365, can be leveraged to support hybrid work activities. We spoke with TechQuarters, a London-based managed service provider and SharePoint provider that has been working with small and medium sized businesses for more than 12 years. We asked them how the platform can be leveraged by hybrid businesses, and the following information is based on what they said.
What Does SharePoint Do?
SharePoint Online is, primarily, a cloud platform dedicated to information sharing and storage. Most people view it as a cloud filing system, which is what many businesses use it as (and it is very good at that). But it is a platform with a lot of potential, and the fact that it has many customisation features makes it a powerful solution for hybrid working. SharePoint Online is composed of the following key components.
Communication Sites
These sites are designed to make it easy to broadcast information to lots of people. Many businesses use them as an internal news outlet for the company – but businesses can also use them for creating various portals for their departments and teams. There is even an option for creating a communication site that the public can view.
Collaboration Sites
These sites are likely what people think of when they talk about SharePoint. They are designed for smaller groups, and are typically used by teams and departments for creating, sharing, co-authoring, and storing shared files and other resources. These sites make it easy for users to keep track of information and resources relevant to their work.
Hybrid Work Use-Cases for SharePoint
Though fairly straightforward in structure, SharePoint offers granularity that enables businesses to customise the platform precisely to suit there needs – and this is what makes it a powerful solution for hybrid working. As tenured SharePoint consultants, we asked TechQuarters about the most valuable use-cases it has in a hybrid work setting. Below are some of the examples they gave…
1. Empower Information Discovery with SharePoint
As mentioned earlier, most businesses use SharePoint like a cloud-based filing system. While the storage capabilities of SharePoint are certainly powerful, its use as a cloud-based intranet is even more powerful. Using the two main forms of site on SharePoint, businesses can create a rich intranet.
2. Enhance SharePoint Collaboration with M365
Microsoft 365 is well known for its approach to data and intelligence sharing across the ecosystem. All of the apps and services integrate with one another seamlessly. Some examples of this with SharePoint includes the way that it can be used in tandem with Microsoft Teams – for instance, every team has a corresponding site. Another useful integration is between SharePoint and OneDrive, which is used for personal storage for individual users.
3. Standardise Hybrid Work Security on SharePoint
Security is an aspect of hybrid working that requires major attention. For example, having provided managed IT services London businesses have relied on for over a decade, TechQuarters does not understate the importance of security in hybrid working arrangements, and they make it a major priority in their services. SharePoint can help standardise security for organisations by enforcing governance policies in the platform that limit and guide the way that users work within sites.
