In times of tight budgets, investments in infrastructure like to be postponed, and that is also investments in the software environment, which often pay off only after some time. But right now it may be worthwhile to consider the introduction of SharePoint, after all, productivity increases on the platform promises of cooperation in teams. Here are some food for thought on how to implement with SharePoint very quick return on investment.

Why SharePoint now introduce the moment?

• Solutions that enable business processes can be automated to help companies achieve the same results with less effort. This is especially true if former employees do not at this stage can be replaced. If a company or organization already SharePoint available is (insert server Windows? - Then you can SharePoint may use free of license ), the configuration of an automation solution SharePoint platform usually easier to justify based on a comprehensive investment in a special software for business process automation.
• Solutions to simplify team collaboration can help to minimize travel costs. Almost all organizations together cancel their travel budgets. If your organization work together in teams on various sites, must also work with reduced travel budgets. Therefore, these teams better organize their cooperation. With SharePoint team sites, wikis and blogs, collaboration across distributed sites will be effectively supported.
• Right now, companies have to deal with the loss of productivity caused by the visua of relevant information. Depending on how you look, we can say that employees spend - particularly in the administration - 20-35% of working time to find the right information. Can you really afford not to invest in technology that facilitates the retrieval of information and increased transparency of information? Would not it be nice to replace the time required to search for information through active knowledge management, so that everyone benefits from shared corporate knowledge?

If you have decided in principle to try it with SharePoint, you should consider some aspects of implementation, which in times of tight budgets are even more important than in growth:

• Do not just install SharePoint and expect the user to jump with enthusiasm on the train. Create sample solutions and sample workspaces where teams can quickly recognize the added value of a well managed SharePoint solution.
• Do not skip the information analysis and description of an "information architecture". Just as quickly as you can create a nested directory structure with content retrieval is impossible, you can also develop a user-unfriendly SharePoint solution. A small investment in the information architecture (with a consultant in your organization or a consulting company) can help you ensure that your SharePoint investment a success.
• Plan from the outset, monitoring and observation of your solution to help them not to mushroom without structure. Only if the contents incorporated in addition to the retrieval are valid and current, you have created a solution that generieret in challenging economic times, a real value, both short and long term.

(This article is a free translation of an English and additional contributions by Susan Hanley )