How SharePoint intranet streamlines digital workplaces

In the era of digital workplaces, SharePoint intranet continues to persist, evolve, and be beneficial for the modern employees. Described usually as a team collaboration and document management platform, Microsoft SharePoint has gone through many updates to become the AI-powered intranet of today. 

At present, the global work culture depends entirely on digital tools, seamless communication, and collaboration methodologies. SharePoint intranet not only lives up to these expectations but also creates a unified portal for your employees – almost like a social network for your internal purpose. 

However, the functionalities of SharePoint are not limited to that! Over the years, it has also played the role of an enterprise content management system (ECM), workflow automation tool, and knowledge management platform. 

In this blog, we discuss its value proposition and how it has evolved to stay relevant and impactful in today’s modern workplaces. 

Features of SharePoint intranet that make it click in the digital world

Since it was launched in 2001, SharePoint has managed to win several followers and critiques along its journey. However, the SharePoint intranet portal benefits outweigh the disapproval, and we have facts to support this statement!

A report by Microsoft concluded that over 250,000 organisations and more than 85% of Fortune 500 companies leverage SharePoint in their workplace. Some significant SharePoint intranet examples are its adoption by companies like Nestle Nutrition Institute, Viacom, and Petronas. Moreover, it has more than 100 million active users and continues to grow despite increasing competition every day. 

While many collaboration tools have emerged in recent years, no other platform has matched up to the comprehensive functionalities that SharePoint intranet offers. Let’s explore some of its features that set it apart and help it grow amongst changing times and demands. 

A perfect fit for any deployment needs:

There are two ways of implementing SharePoint in your organisation – on-premise and SharePoint Online. Both of them offer unique advantages but lately, SharePoint online is getting more popular for obvious reasons. 

It’s a known fact that remote work is on the rise; studies suggest that 70% of the US workforce work remotely every week, and this trend will not subside in the future. SharePoint online is lightweight, reasonably priced, and managed by Microsoft – all these qualities make it ideal for remote teams that require top-notch functionality and flexibility at the same time.

In fact, SharePoint hybrid offers organisations the dual advantage of an on-premise environment and online functionality. It came in handy during the pandemic when many organisations had to go remote overnight. And it continues to be useful as more and more firms embrace hybrid work cultures across the globe. 

SharePoint intranet is adaptable with different teams:

Modern organisations are not monolithic. Several teams work together to chase a single goal, and often, their needs cannot be met with a universal tool. For example – your core project teams might be in greater need of collaboration while the HR department requires a bulletin to make announcements and share updates. 

Thankfully, the MS SharePoint intranet can fulfill all these distinct requirements with the ability to create a variety of SharePoint sites. To begin with, a team site helps people collaborate from anywhere in the world, and communication sites work as a one-way portal where a department can share important information with the rest of the organisation. 

Not to forget, these are just a few examples of SharePoint sites. Building an intranet site with SharePoint opens up various doors for organisations to collaborate, share, and manage intellectual and human resources. 

Mobile-optimized to work on-the-go:

Modern organisational structure is digital – your physical presence is not mandatory at all times as long as your work can reach you via mobile. Hence, it is vital for modern intranet, or any other workplace technology for that matter, to be mobile-optimized. 

Providing mobile access to organisational resources and information, however, is not an easy decision. Most tools come with limited mobile functionality, and even if they promise it, data security remains a significant bottleneck in most of them. 

On the other hand, with the SharePoint intranet, you can always leverage its ready-to-use Android or iOS apps without having to worry about security breaches or performance issues. As a result, organisations don’t have to develop a separate mobile app and rely on their existing SharePoint intranet to build a truly digital workspace. 

Highly secure SharePoint intranet:

There’s no doubt that the digital work culture has ushered in a lot of flexibility and breathing space, but it has also made room for data security breaches and cyberattacks. Especially now that remote work is a norm, personal devices of employees increase the vulnerability manifold. 

Sharepoint, luckily, empowers organisations with a multi-level data protection strategy that covers internal communication, user profiles, and organisational content. Backed by powerful security features, it enables creating an intranet site with SharePoint, a collaborative, highly secure, and easily-to-manage experience. 

With SharePoint, your team can be in complete control of user activities, content sharing, and deployment without having to depend on third-party security tools. 

Powered by AI:

At their core, all modern workplaces are data-driven; thus, it is crucial to work with technology that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to turn data into actionable insights. SharePoint not only comes equipped with built-in AI functionality but also allows seamless integration with third-party AI solutions of your choice.

With SharePoint, organisations can dig deeper into distributed content in a few minutes, segregate essential information with metadata, and rely on intelligent algorithms to match them with the information they need. 

Multi-functionality and scalability:

Today, an organisation needs much more than collaboration and communication tools. And SharePoint has evolved with these requirements – with its built-in workflows that cover hundreds of business scenarios; you can introduce process automation with a few clicks. Similarly, you can leverage separate libraries for knowledge management, allow co-editing and user control of documents, and share information effortlessly. 

What makes SharePoint intranet even more dependable is its high scalability. For example, if you’re planning to scale up, you can subscribe to an advanced level or move to the basic version if scaling down is on your mind. 

Empowering digital workplaces with SharePoint intranet

Introduced as a tool to support internal communication and collaboration, SharePoint intranet has literally grown up to be a fully functional enterprise management system that provides data-driven insights, business automation, task management, and performance monitoring. 

On top of it, it is a part of the Office 365 suite, which makes it most compatible with all Microsoft tools along with a plethora of third-party software. All you need to do to derive maximum benefits is understand your business requirements and tailor SharePoint accordingly.