Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face a constant challenge that is felt (in one way or another) by everyone in their organisation: managing the ever-growing volume of digital content while ensuring compliance, security, and productivity.

As one information manager told us recently, "We moved to Microsoft 365 and expected it would solve our document chaos. Two years later, we realised we had just replicated our file share mess in SharePoint and Teams."

This experience isn't unique. Many SMBs find themselves in a similar position, caught between complex enterprise-grade solutions they can't afford, and built-in capabilities that require too much IT involvement or don't easily meet their needs.

Microsoft 365 offers powerful collaboration tools out-of-the-box with applications like SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive. However, SMBs often discover significant gaps between what's available natively and what their business actually requires enabled for practical content management and governance. These ‘out-of-the-box’ limitations in Microsoft 365 become particularly apparent as organisations grow, compliance requirements increase, and information sprawl accelerates.

Some of these challenges include:

• Finding the right content quickly.
• Reducing work effort duplication.
• Removing document duplication and associated risk.
• Having document lifecycle management, reporting and sufficient auditing.
• Rapid deployment of business-ready content solutions for business processes (e.g. contracts or projects).
• Consistency in user experience across sites.
• Content Retention and Disposal Automation.
• External Guest/Sharing Management (Onboarding and Offboarding).
• Continued content growth and a lack of visibility to manage it.

To understand whether your organisation needs enhanced content management capabilities, let's examine how native Microsoft 365 features compare to purpose-built solutions like iWorkplace Elements for Microsoft.

Microsoft 365 Built-in versus Enhanced Microsoft 365 Solutions for Content Management: What's the Difference?

Making the right choice for your business

While enhanced solutions like iWorkplace Elements do represent an additional investment, SMBs should consider the hidden costs of relying solely on built-in capabilities:

1. Employee productivity losses from time spent searching for information.
2. IT resource reliance for basic workspace requests.
3. Compliance risk exposure from inadequate governance.
4. User satisfaction and frustration in getting work done.
5. Unnecessary costs for specialised content management expertise.

The decision between built-in Microsoft 365 capabilities and enhanced solutions in iWorkplace Elements ultimately depends on your organisation's specific needs, but consider these questions:

1. Does your organisation have regulatory compliance requirements?
2. Do you have limited IT resources for custom configuration work?
3. Are employees struggling to find information quickly?
4. Do you manage sensitive documents requiring specialised security?
5. Are you struggling with visibility and management of content sprawling across multiple sites, and workspaces?
6. Are you concerned with the risk associated with external content sharing and access control?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, your organisation likely needs capabilities beyond what's available out-of-the-box in Microsoft 365.

The Modular Approach

Unlike many enterprise content management systems that require all-or-nothing implementation, today's enhanced solutions for SMBs take a modular approach working within Microsoft 365 so the User Interface and familiarity stay the same reducing change impacts, but the frustration is removed and capabilities enhanced. With iWorkplace Elements for Microsoft 365, organisations can start with their most critical needs and add additional capabilities as requirements evolve. The core offering, iWorkplace Elements Essentials + Preview, delivers modern, compliant, workspace and content management capability. It is a self-service solution, supported by Professional Advantage’s experts, that enables the set up of a modern digital workplace in days.

This "grow as you go" strategy makes enhanced content management accessible to organisations of all sizes without breaking the budget or overwhelming users with change.

Conclusion

While Microsoft 365 provides an excellent foundation for collaboration and basic document storage, many SMBs find that enhanced content management solutions deliver the right balance of governance, security, and usability that their organisations require.

By implementing purpose-built solutions like iWorkplace Elements that address specific content management challenges in Microsoft 365, SMBs can achieve enterprise-grade information governance without enterprise-level complexity or cost. Contact us for additional information or a free consultation today.