Business Case for sharepoint 2010 ?

Question

I need to work on creating a business case for sharepoint . my clients wants to create a internal portal by use of sharepoint .

so which template of sharepoint can i use ? also what are the features which sharepoint 2010 provide ? please send me any sharepoint business cases . .

Answer 1

It's an open-ended question, but I'm going to do my best to point you in the right direction. In my opinion, an intranet is a great place to start using SharePoint. Some will use it for Web Content Management, Document Management, and digital forms and workflows.

The product page is a great place to start: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/product/capabilities/sites/Pages/Intranet-Internet-Sites.aspx

A list of most features in one place is available at: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Editions-Comparison.aspx

The thing is, you can develop literally any application on SharePoint that you can develop on other platforms...because in addition to the out-of-the-box features, it is a platform. What you have to do is find what the clients' needs are and start there.

Suppose your client asked you to make a case for Excel. You could use it to balance a checkbook, do scheduling, or even track inventory (please don't). SharePoint is the same way. You have to determine what are the customer's needs, then explain how SharePoint or another product might address it.

Just a few needs SharePoint addresses:

• Create a web page for each of my departments and even allow the departments to maintain the content
• Maintain one version of the truth by getting Word documents off of hard drives and out of inboxes, and into a central repository with check-in and check-out
• Make it easier to store and find my digital assets (documents, images, etc.) by applying meta data and tags, then using search find them
• Replace paper forms with InfoPath forms and save time by automating business processes using workflows

HR is sometimes a great place to start. You may need document libraries for policies and procedures. You may need forms and workflows to streamline the hiring and termination processes, expense reimbursement, vacation requests, etc.

Answer 2

This is one of the biggest open-ended questions there are when it comes to SharePoint (the biggest being "What is SharePoint?").

In order to be able to produce a good business case, you need to be able to get under the skin of what the client wants, and also know very well what SharePoint is capable of doing out of the box AND what is and what is not possible by customisation.

The basic underlying main features (in my opinion) of SharePoint are:

• Built in security and authentication mechanisms

• Built in support of the Windows Workflow Foundation

• Built in search capability

• Alerts and notification

• Item-level versioning and roll-back

• Integration with line of business systems

• Presentation of data

• Scalability of hardware

Any business case for SharePoint is pretty dependant upon specific requirements of the client. As a solution, in order to have successful return on investment, it must "solve" a business issue, otherwise you have a solution looking for a problem.

Back to your question, for an "Internal Portal", or Intranet, or whatever term you like to use, SharePoint has, right out the box, authentication measures for Active Directory or even a SQL Database of users (using Forms Based Authentication). You can direct content on your portal to specific "groups" of users using Audiences. You can surface information stored in your Line of Business systems in SharePoint, and present this in your portal, or direct it to specific users using Audiences. The users of your SharePoint based portal can leave feedback and comment on content pages, as well as leaving tags, using their own expertise to classify content.

Everything in that last paragraph can be down using tools that come with SharePoint, using the features that are available in the front end UI, with no customisation or special code needed. This could be a good start to your research, as you can compare these features, typical of any portal, with the cost required to custom-build a solution which does this from scratch.

Answer 3

For an in-depth formal business case document which details several different business scenarios, please see the document "Total Economic Impact of SharePoint" at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9730143