SharePoint – from a managed services perspective

As business needs, hardware and applications continue to evolve, this year promises to bring plenty of technology developments that will impact managed IT support services. 2013 appears to be a year that’s ripe for an expansion of companies moving to the cloud, specifically the hybrid cloud this has big implications for managed IT support services.

Moreover, in most organizations CFOs control more IT services spending decisions it’s more important than ever that firms consider managed IT support services to ensure they’re getting the most value out of their technology investments. An article on CIO.com citing a Forrester Research survey reports that more than 40 percent of companies expect their CFOs will have an increasing say in IT services expenditures over the next year. This represents a 5 percent increase over last year’s survey. Additionally, spending for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) projects will increase by as much as 5 to 10 percent this year, according to more than one-third of the survey respondents. The Forrester Research survey follows a study by Everest Group that found 75 percent of IT initiatives last year were initiated by the business community. Only 25 percent began in IT.

From a SharePoint perspective - Managed IT support services can play a critical role for the estimated 51 percent of SharePoint-enabled companies that have no governance strategy in place, That figure comes from an article on the CMSWire website. In a SharePoint environment, on average 26% of the budget goes to facilities, while about 37% is allocated to labor costs. The labor cost aspect is compounded by the fact that experienced SharePoint resources are expensive and difficult to find. A Managed Services approach can give you a complete view of your infrastructure and be able to focus on efficiency and performance at that level – rather than delivering mere localized results.

Moreover, governance concerning change control policy is especially important. It might not be feasible for small businesses to develop a governance strategy by themselves due to the costs involved. That’s where managed IT support services can help. A trusted provider will make sure any technical and security requirements won’t be broken. This will help companies alleviate some of the pain points that they cite when it comes to SharePoint management.

According to Richard Harbridge, a Boston-based SharePoint consultant, future-proofing any SharePoint strategy involves at least two critical components; having a clear strategy to begin with, and an eye on the future and what future challenges can be addressed by a SharePoint solution. The goal of any SharePoint initiative should be to enable an enterprise to grow its business, make changes quickly and be more efficient. A governance strategy helps ensure that SharePoint plans are aligned with those critical business goals. The four areas where businesses have the greatest difficulties: (as per an article CMSWire, February 2013)

• Security and permissions (cited by 60.8 percent in a study of over 1,000 SharePoint administrators).
• The management of content and information storage (cited by 51.3 percent)
• No enterprise governance (46.8 percent).
• Time to manage and application management (43.8 percent).