By Errin O'Connor, Founder & CEO at EPC Group.net
July 01, 2011 - 8:40 PM
In developing any Enterprise Records Management (ERM) or (ECM) Platform, the key to long-term success is your organizations ability to develop a roadmap that takes into consideration the hybrid types of business and functional requirements that the systems user base will encounter in the many months and years to follow its launch.
I am focusing on SharePoint 2010, but its key to take a step back and not just focus on the technology, SharePoint, but what the true needs of the organization are and how best an implementation can not only improve the work lives of the staff but to provide Return on Investment (ROI) to the organization.
This ROI can be measured in terms of productivity, limitation of legal and litigious exposure of "old" records no longer required by the approved retention schedule, improve search, or even decommissioning several other systems with the licensing, support, and O&M costs associated with those "other" systems.
There are so many organizations midstream in their initiatives that are not taking into consideration a “core set of metadata \ content types” but also the need for mobile compatibility and the development of a roadmap that takes into account the functional or business needs that may come into play 24 months down the road.
A SharePoint Platform as a Service (SPaaS) with a hybrid approach will allow you to avoid so many pitfalls and the need to re-architect or modify the system in the future. What should be in this SharePoint Platform as a Service?
Good starting points for services to include are as follows: (Note: Think in terms of a Hybrid SharePoint Ecosystem)
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Records Management Service
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Workflow (Reusable) Service
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Business Intelligence \ Reporting Service (Dashboards, Scorecards, etc.)
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Collaboration Service
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Intranet Service
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Extranet Service
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A possible Internet facing SharePoint Service
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Mobile “Edge Device” Service
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Learning Management System Service (Training)
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Application Development Service
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Corporate Communication Service
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File Share Replacement Service
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Social, or I prefer, a Professional Networking Service (My Sites, etc.)
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Scanning Service (OCR) (Paperless \ Green Initiatives)
SharePoint 2010 can accomplish all of these elements, but it is absolutely crucial for you and your project team to be forward thinking and not scared to face these items that will inevitably come up in a meeting in the next 24 months so why not be prepared.
The lack of, and\or, how to govern these items can be a major factor in many organizations not moving forward on several of the items I have listed above but I will address that in a future post.
To touch on one, the mobile world is here so if you are not developing your solution to be compatible or to be able to adapt to mobile technology in the future, you may be creating a whole new project for yourself in the future. These elements are true whether you are talking about a major government institution, a Fortune 500 company, or a 500 user SharePoint rollout.
In my posts to follow, I will drill down on strategies that will help you accomplish these challenges and help to ensure your SharePoint initiative is a success not only in phase 1 but in phase 5 or phase 6.
False starts in early phases can alienate your user base and stifle future phases or major ROI elements of SharePoint so get your hybrid SharePoint Platform as a Service (24-36 month) roadmap together as soon as possible.
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