The Introduction:
The client is a global manufacturing and engineering concern with diverse operations catering to the specific needs of three different industries. The client was using SharePoint 2007 for its document management needs but experienced troubles associated with management of additional servers for meeting custom business application requirements owing to an older architecture. To modernize operations and bring down operational costs, the company was looking to migrate to SharePoint 2016.
Challenge
As the company was operating in a dynamic environment having several clients, it was essential to deal with the migration process strategically. The major challenges associated with migration to SharePoint 2016 were as follows:
Optimal Management of Large Volumes of Data: The company had elaborate business processes that were predominantly dependent on SharePoint 2007. This meant the existing SharePoint system stored a large volume of data associated with clients, orders, production, sales and other operational processes. Migration without data loss and inconsistency was a major challenge that required careful planning and implementation.
Extending SharePoint Thresholds: SharePoint has default thresholds that every default value must respect. As the client had custom requirements, it was essential to extending the thresholds according to the personalized operational requirements of the client. Several steps were taken so that the processes were completed without breaching threshold restrictions associated with list views, admin views and co-authoring limits.
Along with the above technical challenges, migration needed to be completed in a streamlined way that doesn’t hamper the regular operations of the company. At the same time, the client wanted to speed up performance of the SharePoint solution and complete migration as quickly as possible.
Our Solution
Planning to improve its operational efficiency and bring down costs, the company contacted Team Stridely. Stridely Solutions closely analyzed the existing business processes and recommended migration to SharePoint 2016 that would help the company in reducing cost of operations and streamline operations in an efficient way.
In addition to spearheading the migration efforts, Stridely also suggested unique solutions to address the custom requirements of the company. Stridely Solutions planned the migration activity and took a modular approach when it came to implementation of SharePoint 2016 for seamless migration without any disruptions. The migration efforts by Team Stridely offered the company an unprecedented edge by providing the following benefits and capabilities:
Limitless Scalability
SharePoint 2016 was way better than the company’s existing SharePoint 2007 version. The migration enhanced the scalability potential as the new version supported larger files with potential of indexing more number of items and larger list threshold. As SharePoint 2016 integrates with Office 365, it also allowed company to bring down license cost per staff member.
Exclusive Integration with Office 365 Tools
SharePoint 2016 supports seamless cloud integration with Office 365. This means the company can take advantage of all Office 365 solutions, software and tools while being on cloud or in a hybrid environment. While this promotes enhanced collaboration, it also minimizes chances of miscommunication. At the same time, the company was able to adopt mobile strategies and promote remote working capabilities.
Better Navigation and Responsiveness
SharePoint 2016 comes with a user-friendly interface and promotes high levels of flexibility and responsiveness. Its features like hybrid search function allowed stakeholders in the company to easily navigate and get access to the documents or files they wanted, at the right time. Easy access paved the way for an increase in productivity, which ultimately improved the bottom line.
Critical Data Unlocking using SPListX
Migrating to SharePoint 2016 gave the client access to data management tools like SPListX. Using SPListX, the company was able to export important information and list items from SharePoint directly to the intended location. Not only this boosted operational speed but saved valuable time of employees and other stakeholders.
Results and ROI
After the SharePoint migration, the company witnessed enormous increase in productivity and decline in the cost of operations. Not only was the company able to clean up half of the redundant/obsolete data, but the IT processes were also optimized owing to enhanced SharePoint capabilities. At the same time, the employees and management enjoyed advanced data analytics, management and export features which were not possible in their previous system. All this, in addition to fulfillment of the core aim of migration, i.e. reduction in cost. The company was able to bring down the IT and operations costs by up to 50% and achieve RoI soon after the migration.
Key Stats
- 30% reduction in general operational costs
- 50% lesser data to manage due to data cleanup
- Risk mitigation and reduction
- Fast project completion with shorter migration timeline
- Speedy data extraction and infusion into SharePoint 2016