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Introduction

In this era of cloud computing and collaborative platform, SharePoint is a familiar name to the people of the business industry. The fact that more than 85% of Fortune 500 companies use SharePoint is the proof of its efficiency. If you are a business owner, then you should also consider using SharePoint to increase the productivity of your workforce. In this post, we will try to convey a clear concept of what is SharePoint and its benefits to the readers. First of all, let’s learn what is SharePoint and what it does.

What is SharePoint?

SharePoint is a product/ application used for collaboration, data storage, and document management. It also provides users a platform to develop web applications that can meet their customized requirements. All apps and data are stored in one place so that all members can conveniently access, store and share data. Cost reduction and risk management are two of the main reasons behind its popularity.

Based on the performing platform, there are two types of SharePoint: SharePoint on-premise and SharePoint Online. Now we will know the main attributes of SharePoint.

Attributes of SharePoint

There are some common attributes of SharePoint:

• Provides facilities to develop and deploy Share Point websites
• Creates user groups, types and lists
• Individual user rights can be defined
• Absolute security of user information
• Availability of site templates
• Allows customization of website UI
• Facilitates making and using blogs and wikis

Benefits & Advantages of SharePoint

The benefits of using SharePoint are numerous. For this discussion, we have chosen top 10 prime benefits of SharePoint.

1. Collaboration: SharePoint is highly praised for providing a perfect collaborative platform. All members or a team or organization can stay connected while working in partnership. Using the latest real-time streaming feature of SharePoint, sharing and accessing data within an organization have become faster than ever.
2. Customization: The need of every industry and organization is different from each other. SharePoint works relentlessly to serve all of them by keeping the individual demands in mind. At SharePoint, organizations get complete freedom to customize everything, from services to websites. From the large collection of intelligent tools, companies can pick according to their development needs and also customize them.
3. Website Unification: SharePoint has brought all sites of a company under one umbrella. It facilitates the consolidation of the Internet, intranet, and extranet sites. As a result, it costs the company less than the cost of separately done site management.
4. Full-proof Security: When it comes to security, SharePoint will get full marks. SharePoint uses SSL for trafficking user data that has been already encrypted. They never disclose the physical location of their server to anyone. According to policy, SharePoint data are never minded for advertising. SharePoint also provides data backup and protects user identity.
5. Centralized Administration and Storage: SharePoint offers storage facility to all data of your organization at one place. The entire platform can also be controlled by central administrators. Application management, data backup and restoration, upgradation, system settings configuration, everything can be controlled from one location, thanks to SharePoint.
6. Easy to Use and Learn: SharePoint has simplified the development process of business tools and sites. No need to hire a professional when even people without web development background can easily learn and apply the method of site development. This has actually shortened the response time to any immediate business need.
7. Utilization of Manpower and Expenditure: Earlier, IT employees hardly had any free time but with the introduction of SharePoint, things have changed. IT people do not have to spend time for maintenance, backup, and patching as these can be easily done by SharePoint Admin panel. As a result, IT staffs can utilize their time by doing something more productive. In this way, SharePoint ensures proper utilization of manpower and cost.
8. Anywhere Access to SharePoint Online: With the arrival of SharePoint Online that works in collaboration with Office 365, SharePoint users get complete freedom in terms of network and device. Now they can access SharePoint from literally anywhere. SharePoint also permits syncing its data with Windows Explorer. All the works done in offline mode get synced with the online version as soon as the device gets connected to Internet.
9. Easy Management of External Users: All SharePoint files and sites can be easily shared with anyone. Microsoft account holders can have easy access to SharePoint content. To share it with an external user, SharePoint generates guest links that do not require any sign-in. SharePoint allows you to set a policy regarding external sharing by which, the external access will be controlled systematically.
10. Flexible Scaling: SharePoint Online, which is a component of Office 365, allows flexible scaling of your organization. As an Office 365 subscriber, companies need to pay according to the number of employees. If there is an increase or decrease in the employee number, the monthly subscription plan helps to manage the cost. Now organizations can easily scale their farm without affecting the budget.

Conclusion

Here we have discussed what is SharePoint and its benefits. Readers will get a complete idea about the advantages of using SharePoint from this post. This write-up will also help users to decide whether to opt for this Office 365 product or not. SharePoint is a product trusted by millions of users worldwide. Business users can choose to use SharePoint if it meets their business requirements.