The high hidden costs of
SharePoint Customization

There is an old saying, no one ever got fired for buying IBM. I dare say the same adage can apply to Microsoft. After all, Microsoft always has, and for the foreseeable future, will continue to own the business environment unless anyone comes up with a holistic replacement for their platform.

For this reason, SharePoint has become as popular as it is. After all, it’s just another brick in the Microsoft foundation, and when everything comes as a package, it’s hard to avoid. This is where “nobody gets fired for buying Microsoft” comes into play—because no one buys it, they already have it.

Perhaps, this is the crux of the issue. Free doesn’t always translate to “cheap,” and in SharePoint’s case—it NEVER does. So why is that?

Firstly, I’ll just come right out and say it: a SharePoint-consulting industry emerged that took advantage of the solution’s ubiquitous nature. Those same consulting companies unanimously agreed that SharePoint customization is expensive and shall forever remain expensive, solidifying their market and profit margins. 

To add to the prices, those same consulting companies have exhausted their employment base—meaning there are only so many bodies to fill positions. I know people in the industry that have confirmed that it is highly cut-throat. These consulting companies work in a world where poaching talent from one another is just part of the game. The market subsequently creates an unfortunate side effect —too many customization projects awaiting fulfillment, boosting waitlists and prices.

But as it turns out, many people are catching on to what makes SharePoint great and not-so-great simultaneously. The great part is the opportunity, as mentioned above, for customization. With enough money and resources, Sharepoint customization can result in the ability to do just about anything. But this is also the Achilles heel. Customization of any kind with any product is never inexpensive. It immediately translates to people, time and money.

However, there is light at the end of this tunnel. In the case of SharePoint, custom workflows once created internally can now reside within an external platform, taking only a fraction of the time and cost to configure. And that is the secret—configuration vs customization.

Now, as modern digital business comes of age, customization is becoming a thing of the past. As a result, the once hidden costs in consulting services, additional staffing requirements, training, and more are no longer viable.

Now, platforms such as WorkDynamics enable users to connect seamlessly to SharePoint as their document repository of choice while allowing users to configure seamless, highly-robust workflows almost instantly.

Welcome to the modern magic of “No-Code” configuration. In our case, the WorkDynamics Platform is fully configurable, boasting a “No-Code” approach resulting in business process applications that can be created and deployed more quickly and reliably than any other existing management software. In addition, our platform’s comprehensive workflow creation and tracking functionality enable you to do away with costly SharePoint customizations, simplifying the way you collaborate while improving workforce efficiencies.

Best of all, workflows, processes and integrations become highly interoperable and compatible outside of single departments—internal and external users immediately benefit from faster, better interactions.

If you want to find out how much we can save you—it’s usually around 80% of the typical SharePoint consulting costs. Give us a call to find out more. That is unless you have an extra million dollars kicking around that you’re itching to spend on SharePoint—in that case, who am I to judge? 😉

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