Channelling SharePoint via third-party apps

Simon Hudson extols the potential benefits of partnering to plug holes in popular offerings

Microsoft SharePoint is one of the most popular business applications on the market. However, businesses often find that deploying and managing SharePoint can be complex, requiring dedicated and highly skilled staff.

Many businesses that have deployed SharePoint or are seeking to use it do not have the right skills in-house. This encourages users to turn to third-party vendors for help with any issues. The channel, too, should consider working with these vendors.

Tools are available that can help to automate migration, manage governance, and support backup-and-restore processes. Pain points can emerge at various stages, often linked to the size or maturity of the platform.

Certain problems can arise even early on. Some vendors have integrated offerings that only need to be installed once, with new modules that can be switched on as needed. This may help resellers offer a product suite that can change in accordance with their needs without disrupting day-to-day activities.

Assess all products carefully.

We prefer a tiered channel programme. Flexibility driven by a joint business plan can help define the steps to success, identifying key milestones and goals.

We also like time, training, sales enablement and marketing programmes that help build a good long-term relationship. Vendors and partners should complement each other.

The right third-party app can simplify the management of a SharePoint environment while ensuring continuity of information access. Our customers are primarily healthcare providers so this is crucial to achieving their productivity goals, and ensuring they get returns from their investments in us and in SharePoint.

As the NHS focuses on quality, innovation, productivity and savings, better business workflow and doing more with less are key priorities for our customers.

Working with the right third-party vendors also helps us act as a one-stop shop. An integrated stack can be very well received, helping build better relationships with customers.

Vendors that take a modular approach also provide us with an opportunity to upsell. Traditionally, about half of SharePoint projects fail, but the right third-party offerings can plug any holes.

We have been able to make more money when upgrading and extending existing SharePoint deployments, integrating offerings that can grow with customers' environments.

Simon Hudson is director of Cloud2