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Enterprise Content Management: Businesses Struggle with SharePoint Installations
A recent report by Osterman Research reviewed the state of SharePoint projects within companies. SharePoint and other collaboration tools are increasingly being deployed by companies to manage their documents and content. While the report specifically focused on SharePoint, to be fair, it is likely that most of the findings are equally applicable to competing collaboration and content management technologies like open source offerings from Alfresco and Nuxeo and other proprietary products like EMC Documentum and IBM FileNet.
The Osterman report focused on the roadblocks and issues faced by businesses attempting to roll out SharePoint-based systems. And when the results of their survey were compared to the results from the previous year, almost across the board, the obstacles and problems were found to have become even more challenging.
The problems confronting businesses with their SharePoint installations include:
- Reduced resources / Fewer staff. SharePoint IT staffing levels dropped by one third from the levels of the previous year
- Difficulty in auditing. Nearly half say that they would have problems responding to an audit or a request of eDiscovery with their current SharePoint implementations
- 79 percent of business lack governance: 39 percent say that their company has no governance plan and 40 percent say that they have a plan, but it isn’t being followed
Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research, said that “many IT departments are understaffed because enterprises underestimate the operations resources required to manage, secure, patch and back up SharePoint sites, databases, servers and farms.”
| Inhibitor | September 2012 | August 2011 |
| APPLICATIONS | ||
| SharePoint applications are too costly to build or purchase | 47% | 27% |
| ADMINISTRATION | ||
| Lack of skills/training/knowledge of SharePoint with current staff | 53% | 40% |
| Difficulty in finding qualified SharePoint personnel | 53% | 40% |
| BUDGET AND BUY-IN | ||
| Budget for SharePoint project | 52% | 40% |
| CXO or executive level buy-in or sponsorship | 52% | 40% |
