You think your business is ready to spin the wheel when you purchase SharePoint Online or Office 365. Of course, you can configure your business email accounts, and it’s been working great. You’re ready to migrate all your documents to the central location to enable collaboration. You landed on your newly launched SharePoint homepage, and that’s when reality started to kick in for you.

You begin to realize that some aspects don’t function as intended. Now, the question is, how can you utilize a super-capable application and make it into a productive, collaborative, and efficient organizational environment?

Here, you have two choices: push yourself to do everything alone and hope it works, or seek the help of SharePoint specialists.

The former option may be financially sound but detrimental when you need more expert skills. Conversely, the latter may entail additional overhead expenses but will significantly save you the stress of dealing with a complex and seemingly “foreign” process.

Here are three reasons your business needs to hire the services of a SharePoint consultant.


1. SharePoint is Different from Dropbox

It’s a misconception to assume that SharePoint is the same as Box or Dropbox. These three tools are entirely different and have diverging evolution paths. The latter was designed merely as a synchronization and file-sharing tool for various devices like tablets, phones, and laptops. On the other hand, the former was intended to function as an independent system of web parts that will solve different business needs and improve collaboration at an enterprise level. It’s not a storage app or solution.

It’s important to note that this requires a certain level of expertise to maximize fully. SharePoint specialists can easily provide this level of knowledge.


2. SharePoint Use Requires Time and Attention

Simply put, ensuring that SharePoint functions correctly for your business is a full-time endeavor. You can’t simply dump all your files from DropBox to SharePoint or share a URL once you’re done with a task. Using SharePoint is akin to flying an airplane. While most people know how to ride a bicycle, few have the technical skills to fly a plane. With this, you can assume that it requires complicated electronics and technology.

SharePoint requires knowledge and expertise in managing document management tools, navigation, security, apps, web parts, pages, and sites. So, to save yourself the trouble of dealing with all these complicated processes and tools, hire an expert instead. Save your effort where it’s most needed—running your business.


3. SharePoint Requires Precision and Long-term Strategy

You can’t get it wrong when using SharePoint, so you have to be thorough with your long-term strategy before the actual execution. You’ll need to think through and brainstorm on governance, metadata configuration, external sharing, security groups, permission set-up, subsite structure, site navigation, and information architecture. If you ignore any of these, your SharePoint can quickly become an expensive trash bin.

These reasons are based on the experiences shared by business owners who have tried (and failed) in managing their SharePoint system. The decision of whether to try DIY or to hire an expert is purely personal. Bear in mind that the successful implementation of SharePoint can only be achieved if all the complicated steps are correctly followed.