Is poor SharePoint adoption damaging your client collaboration project?
Whether your organization is already using SharePoint or you’re looking for a better option, Huddle is the perfect SharePoint alternative and document collaboration software choice.
Today's businesses need the tools and services to collaborate more efficiently not only across internal teams, but also externally with clients and partners. Chances are your business has tried to use an existing intranet solution, or SharePoint deployment to meet this challenge.
Unfortunately, SharePoint makes external collaboration frustratingly difficult. It also suffers from incredibly low user adoption. A recent report found that 40% of organizations don’t consider their on-premise SharePoint implementation to be a success – with two-thirds (67 percent) blaming this on inadequate user training, 66 percent saying it's too difficult to use, and 64 percent reporting that lack of support from senior management is the reason that their deployments have failed.
SharePoint Online struggles in the same way. 2016 data finds that only 35% of organizations with a Microsoft O365 subscription are using SharePoint Online – with only 2% of their employees actively using it!
SharePoint challenges
Complexity is just one of the reasons why businesses like yours are looking for Microsoft SharePoint alternatives. In our work with hundreds of businesses who've looked to find a better solution for content management, file sharing, and collaboration; two other factors are commonly cited:
- Total cost of ownership: TCO (Total cost of Ownership) is more than just you license costs. In fact, when you consider maintenance costs, provisioning, and upgrades, the server-based version of SharePoint can cost thousands of dollars for a single license. Even with SharePoint Online (where the license costs are bundled within your O365 subscription), the hidden cost of deployment and administration can quickly mount up. Training, migration, customization, administration and implementation should all be considered in your ROI analysis. In the first year of a deployment, non-license costs can actually consume 67% of the Total Cost of Ownership.
- Maintenance Burden: Because of its complexity SharePoint can require a lot of time and IT resources to maintain. It's one of the reasons why a recent report found that 40% of organizations don’t consider their on-premise SharePoint implementation to be a success.
What do you need from a SharePoint alternative?
- File sharing: If you're looking for basic file sharing features to share files across individuals and teams, tools including Google Drive, Box Microsoft OneDrive will probably meet your needs. However, these typically work by organising users around files and folders which can create massive folder sprawl if you're trying to manage multiple client projects.
- Enterprise content management: Heavy document management and content management systems are a great way to store and archive enterprise content. However, they can be cumbersome for dynamic, real-time team collaboration - especially if your're looking to collaborate with clients and partners.
- Client Portals & Team collaboration: Tools like Huddle allow you to build custom branded portals that connect your internal teams with their clients in secure cloud-based workspaces where they can share and work on documents. A client portal is an effective way to secure how sensitive client files are shared, as well as offering the collaboration software features you need to manage file versions, approvals, and team discussion.
Key benefits
Huddle can be deployed in a matter of minutes, compared to SharePoint, which takes weeks, or even months. Usage spreads quickly across your department and Huddle scales easily with your organization.
People proactively use Huddle because it’s powerful, yet easy to learn and use every day. Huddle’s remarkably intuitive design is one of the major reasons Huddle is the #1 SharePoint alternative. It’s engineered to be the kind of document management and collaboration environment we all want to use.
It's easy for your clients to use: You can invite your clients to join your private cloud-based Huddle workspace in just a few clicks. Unlike Microsoft SharePoint, they don't need a Microsoft account to access your content.
- Stay up to date: Huddle automatically syncs your updates (including file changes, new comments, @mentions, and approval requests) across all of your devices, so you, your team, and your clients are always kept up-to-date with the latest activity.
- Secure: Huddle is FedRamp approved for US Government use, and features bank-grade security to keep your sensitive data secure. It's more secure to share files through Huddle than through email, consumer-grade file-sharing tools, or USB flash drives; protecting you from data breaches.
- Transparency: With Huddle, every piece of user and document activity is time-stamped and tracked. Not only does this offer greater security, but it makes it simple to check if your client has read your latest document updates!
- Works with your existing productivity tools: Huddle works with your existing productivity tools. Open your Google Docs or Microsoft files directly from Huddle - make your edits and sync back. You team and clients will then automatically be alerted to your latest comments and document versions.
If your existing intranet isn't up to the job, or if you're looking for the best Microsoft SharePoint alternative possible and need something more than just cloud-based document storage, we'd love to talk to you about you collaboration software needs!
If you would like a free trial of Huddle, simply request a demo.
Resources
#1 Google Drive alternative
Google Drive represents a great option for users looking for free storage, but it has some serious limitations in an enterprise environment.
Online client portals
Create secure online portals where teams and clients can keep track of work and share project deliverables.