CMIT Solutions of Chesterfield is the small business IT support and IT services company for Chesterfield, St. Louis, Wildwood, Hazelwood, Maryland Heights, Bridgeton, Earth City, and Saint Ann.
Michelle holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Missouri in Columbia and a Master’s in Project Management from Keller Graduate School of Management. Michelle offers over 20 years of software development and Information Technology experience. Her dedication and passion for what she does makes her a very valuable member of the CMIT Solutions of Chesterfield team. Michelle approaches problems and projects given to her with unmatched enthusiasm.
Barry Holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Technical Project Management from ITT Technical Institute in Earth City Missouri. Barry is retired military, and has over 30 years of project management experience, with 20 years of that experience in the Information Technology arena. His enthusiasm and desire to earn client trust and loyalty is unsurpassed by his peers. Barry’s motto is “Making I.T. Happen”.
So What Is SharePoint, Anyway?
Many small businesses have huge problems when it comes to managing processes and sharing information. With every worker wearing multiple hats, it’s often difficult to keep track of who’s in charge of what, to say nothing of where all the information on a particular project is stored. So what do people do? They either have a short conversation by the water cooler, or they say, “Shoot me an email with the status update and your newest version of that contract.”
These approaches will get the job done – and for your average small business struggling to stay on top of a growing workload with limited staff and resources, just getting the job done is an accomplishment in itself. But if you want to get ahead by actively managing your work processes and sharing information efficiently, you’re probably going to need something like SharePoint.
What it is: In a nutshell, it’s the guts behind a good intranet. Think about your ideal company intranet. It would probably include:
SharePoint gives you all of that in a single package. And it’s highly customizable to fit in with your company’s structure and work processes.
What it does: It centralizes all that information that’s been floating around in email, on hard drives, on various servers, and on paper so that everybody in your organization can find what they need in one place. It helps preserve institutional knowledge so that you’re not left in the lurch if a key employee leaves your organization. It can serve as the go-to bulletin board for company announcements. And it can foster lively discussions and the exchange of ideas.
What it won’t do: Like any collaborative tool, SharePoint thrives on participation and suffers when it’s ignored. In other words, it won’t work if you don’t use it. You have to actively post documents and participate in discussions. People may resist using SharePoint at first, preferring to just email documents or do whatever their old work habits dictate. But the more you can steer people toward it, the more they’ll use it, and the more value they’ll build into it. It’s a virtuous circle.
Sign me up: Not so fast. First you need to decide whether you’re going to go with a server-based, in-house SharePoint solution, or if you’re going to go with a hosted option. Both have their benefits and drawbacks. Talk with CMIT Solutions about which option is best for you – whichever one you choose, we can help you set up and customize SharePoint to fit your business.
