Choosing a SharePoint consultant is a business decision that many organizations have made. Though for those who are not well-versed in what SharePoint has to offer, it can be a daunting task. How do you choose the right firm for your needs? Whether you have personal experience with or knowledge of SharePoint or not, the tips below can help you choose wisely.
Industry Knowledge and Experience
Choose a company that has worked with others within your industry. This provides them with insight into what your needs are, as well as offering an opportunity for them to provide you with services you may not be aware existed but would be very beneficial to your company. Industry knowledge and experience are two things that will go far toward a consultant’s ability to help meet your particular needs, and they can help you develop the product you have hired them for in a way that maximizes all its benefits.
Each industry is unique and has its own distinct needs. Skilled consultants recognize this and can tailor the services needed to fit the industry in question.
Understands How to Take Advantage of SharePoint’s Unique Capabilities
A SharePoint consultant should know the service inside and out, and know how to leverage its capabilities in a way that maximizes its usefulness to your particular business needs. Providers of SharePoint consulting services should have the know-how to manipulate the service however is necessary to meet the client needs, and they should be willing to walk you through the process from start to finish so that you know exactly how it will be of benefit.
Many consultants only offer out-of-the-box solutions, with limited customization options. However, SharePoint is highly customizable and can be tailored to your specific needs. Your consulting choice should be able to explain how they can manipulate this information in order to tailor the program to your needs–if they can’t, it’s likely time to move on. Alternatively, if your needs are relatively straightforward but the consultant is pushing customization, it might be time to look for a different solution.
Organized and Efficient
SharePoint provides a unique opportunity to help your business become more organized, and a key factor in its ability to do so is for the person who is helping you analyze your data and how you are going to use SharePoint to manage it having in-depth knowledge of the best ways to utilize the program. This means that they also need to be organized, efficient and able to explain to you the ways in which SharePoint can maximize your efficiencies and improve upon existing processes.
Choosing a consultant makes many business owners wary, especially when it is for something they are unfamiliar with. Great consultants will be able to demonstrate their knowledge, and you should go into your search with your industry standards and expectations firmly in mind.
