What if the most powerful business tool you own, is being used at only a fraction of its capabilities?
That’s the case for many organizations utilizing SharePoint. Commonly understood as a document management system, SharePoint is much more than basic document management, it is a comprehensive digital workplace ecosystem that can ease business processes, create a community of collaboration, and automate complicated workflows, with little to no cost. But too many organizations struggle to get past file storage and sharing!
In today’s business environment, organizations need more than file sharing consideration because they require intelligent platforms that take into account collaboration. It helps move to a digital learning experience, provide instant and secure access to the necessary information to be successful. As teams become more disconnected, and workflows become more difficult, a smart and centralized solution is no longer a nice to have, but a necessity to remain agile and on par!
Hence, Sharepoint is designed to be that solution and SharePoint examples for business can speak volumes of its importance!
In this blog, we’re going to help in identifying the common use cases of SharePoint (beyond file management) of business. We will provide real life examples to show how organizations are embracing SharePoint as a weapon and leveraging technology to move their business further ahead. It also defines how companies are implementing SharePoint to improve onboarding, project management, contract tracking and much more, quickly and effectively. Let’s get started!
Why SharePoint Matters in Modern Business?
As organizations continue to establish themselves in digital work environments, and hybrid work becomes centralized and flexible, secure work environments will become even more important. Ultimately, SharePoint will facilitate this advancement by providing a single environment for content, collaboration, and business processes. Factually, SharePoint for collaboration purpose is one of the common use for businesses beside document management!
At its core, SharePoint for document management is essentially important for a business. It lets teams to securely store, organize, and share documents, with collaboration among groups and organizations, and in some of the most difficult work environments!
SharePoint’s collaboration and content management abilities mean that members of Teams can co-author documents, do version control, and communicate with each other across the organization. The benefit is that the barrier of distance, department, or geography disappears in real time!
SharePoint enables users to automate processes and workflows. Indeed, processes that involve forms submission, approvals, or document routing become dramatically easier, faster and built-in!
SharePoint works within the MS 365 ecosystem and integrates with Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Power Automate, Power BI and a few others for business productivity.
SharePoint fits and scales to organizations of all sizes and shapes, from a three-person team, all the way to a large global enterprise operating in nearly every industry! Whether SharePoint in project management meets your specific business demand or SharePoint for employee boarding is your next goal, SharePoint stands alone!
10 SharePoint Use Case Examples Every Business Should Know
1. Procter & Gamble (P&G)
Use Case: Unified Global Intranet & Collaboration
P&G is using SharePoint to bring together the global workforce in a central intranet system. SharePoint allows employees to learn about company news, HR-related items, and participate in employee engagement. It helps provide consistent communication sending messages to millions of employees at hundreds of world-wide locations! P&G is one of the finest SharePoint Intranet use cases!
Key Features: Global intranet portal, enterprise search, content publishing, role-based access
2. Coca-Cola HBC
Use Case: Compliance-Driven Document Management
With operations in 28 countries, Coca-Cola HBC is leveraging SharePoint to manage operational documents, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and compliance documents. SharePoint can manage document versioning, controlled access, and streamline collaboration amongst regulatory teams.
Key Features: Document libraries, approval workflows, access permissions, audit trails
3. Toyota
Use Case: Manufacturing SharePoint Workflow Automation Example & Project Tracking
Toyota is using SharePoint to implement standardized workflows across manufacturing teams and automate workflows while providing real-time project tracking and project decision making. SharePoint integrated with Power Automate is used to complex manufacturing processes and real-time project transparency.
Key Features: Workflow automation, project dashboards, task lists, Power Platform integration (SharePoint integration use case)
4. British Airways
Use Case: Collaborative Intranet for Frontline and Office Teams
British Airways developed a SharePoint-based intranet available for everyone at the airline to Sonnect flight crew with back-office teams. The application enables flight and ground crews to connect with staff all over the operational footprint including the United Kingdom. The app allows for messaging, instructional videos, and training resources, as well as schedule changes, etc.
Key Features: SharePoint team sites, mobile, document groups, news feeds
5. Pfizer
Use Case: The application for Secure Research Collaboration and Knowledge
Pfizer manages and tracks its research documents and clinical trials according to standards and compliance needs. The SharePoint managed space is a cross-border shared solution bringing together those teams who need to have access to a file while excluding everyone else.
Key Features: Secure distribution, version control, tagging by means of metadata, fine-grained permissions
6. Dubai Airports
Use Case: Operations Management & Employee Services
Dubai Airports is effectively using Sharepoint as an internal operations manager for invoice authorization status tracking and employee administration. It is also used to effect internal communication. Staff can access forms, policies, and news updates all in one place in real time.
Key Features: Customized forms, workflows, staff portals, announcement boards
7. Mayo Clinic
Use Case: Medical Knowledge Base & Research Sharing
Mayo Clinic has put into use SharePoint for storing and sharing of medical research, training materials, and internal documentation in one central location. This improves learning and collaboration among healthcare professionals.
Key Features: Content management, document libraries, advanced search, taxonomy.
8. Transport for London (TfL)
Use Case: Infrastructure Project Collaboration and Documentation
TfL uses SharePoint to manage large infrastructure projects by streamlining document control and collaborative workspaces for engineering and planning teams. This platform promises compliance with public regulations and audits.
Key Features: Project sites, version control, collaborative editing, compliance management
9. Siemens
Use Case: Digital Workplace & Collaboration Across Functions
SharePoint is integrated into Siemens’ digital workplace to enable real-time collaboration across departments and geographies. SharePoint is providing the basis for employee portals and business process automation.
Key Features: Microsoft 365 integration, Power Automate, multilingual support, content sharing
10. EY (Ernst & Young)
Use Case: Knowledge Sharing & Team Productivity
EY employs SharePoint to build a KMS that aims to make reports, case studies, and best practices available to consulting practices around the world. The purpose is to positively impact the client experience and internal learning.
Key Features: Knowledge base, enterprise search, content categorization, role-based access.
How Your Business Can Leverage SharePoint (Tips & Next Steps)
To make the most out of SharePoint, it’s important to first understand what your organization really needs. Once you know that, it becomes clearer how SharePoint can help. Here’s a simple roadmap to help you get started:
- Identify Process Gaps:
Recognize the issue areas of inefficiency present within your business. Are files lying around everywhere between departments? Is document versioning going wild? Are approvals manual? Process gaps point towards areas of intervention where SharePoint can do the most good.
- Start Small, Then Scale:
Begin with small, easily manageable use cases with fairly strong impact. Here are some suggestions:
- An Onboarding Portal: Centralize employee orientation comes easy with SharePoint for HR portal!
- Approval Workflow: PDFs or steams of things to approve, change it to automated document flows instead of emails.
- Create a simple intranet site and use SharePoint to centralize communications internally such as company news/internal resources.
- Work with SharePoint Experts:
A SharePoint development partner is there to tailor the platform to your business requirements, applying technology to add scalability, security, and enhanced user experience. Very often, the custom solutions that are build on a SharePoint site provide more business value than any off the shelf solutions.
- Leverage Microsoft Power Platform:
Connect SharePoint to Power Automate to automate repetative tasks, and connect to Power BI to visualize information and data in SharePoint Libraries. This makes SharePoint a powerful place, and intelligent business hub!
Through strategic implementation of must haves with SharePoint, the organization can make it a major building block of productive workplace and digital transformation.
Key Takeaways From These Use Cases
The SharePoint use cases in enterprise indicate how SharePoint can provide significant value beyond an electronic document store. Across sectors, such as healthcare, manufacturing, aviation, and consulting, many enterprises are using SharePoint to disrupt their operations and provide significant business value!
One of the most benefits realized is better communication. For example, using centralized portals and intranets developed with SharePoint information resources and internal announcements can be readily found and accessed by employees, wherever they are located. This ultimately impacts collaboration, whether it be within teams or across departments or globally when employees need to come together in the moment!
In A Nutshell
If you’re just simply using SharePoint as document repository, then you are not doing what the tool is meant to do.
The ways mentioned here highlighted that SharePoint can be used as the groundwork for how your organization is managing its knowledge, facilitating collaboration, and automating every-day processes. It could be managing projects, onboarding employees, or promoting internal communication. SharePoint has the ability to support any of those specialized ways of working.
The true value and opportunity is in the flexibility. SharePoint can be fitted to your organization’s goals and workflows as well as to your sector and industry requirements!
At NGS Solutions we support companies to maximize how they use and benefit from SharePoint. We have over 10 years’ experience in Microsoft technologies, and the NGS Solutions team partners with organizations to plan and implement SharePoint solutions tailored to their needs, and that help to improve effectiveness, scalability and impact!
Is your organization ready to change how it works using SharePoint with more powerful capabilities?
Contact NGS Solutions to avail the ROI-driven and customer-centric SharePoint development services!
FAQs
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What is SharePoint mainly used for?
SharePoint is largely used as a place for content management, document storage and collaborating with teams. Using SharePoint allows organizations to have intranet portals, manage workflows, automate business processes and share information within departments/teams securely.
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Can small businesses use SharePoint, too, or is it just for large enterprises?
Definitely! SharePoint is very scalable and can be customized to suit the size of your business. Small businesses can take advantage of many of SharePoint’s great collaboration capabilities, document management tools and workflow automation without dealing with the complications or costs of enterprise level solutions.
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How can I use SharePoint effectively in my organization?
The first step in getting the most out of SharePoint is to determine your business need or pain point. Examples of pain points are document chaos or lack of clear approval processes. Once you have identified the pain point, you can consider solutions such as team sites, automated workflows or intranet portals. Working with a SharePoint expert can also allow you to fine-tune the solution as it relates to your organization’s processes.
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What are the main uses of SharePoint?
Some examples of SharePoint main uses include document and content management, intranet and communication portals, collaboration spaces, workflow and process automation, knowledge management, and connecting with Microsoft 365 applications to improve productivity.
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What are some SharePoint use case examples?
SharePoint use cases can include employee onboarding portals, management of contracts and compliance documents, project dashboards, secure research collaboration, internal communication (like what is done at P&G, Toyota, and Pfizer).
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How to choose the right SharePoint app development company?
Find a SharePoint development partner that has a proven ability, understands Microsoft certifications, has a portfolio of created customized solutions. A solid SharePoint development partner will understand your industry, can provide customized support, and can align SharePoint with your existing systems and workflows.
