Lately, I have been increasingly asked to come up with something that looks like a value proposition for selling SharePoint to potential customers. Luckily, I had already thought about this one, so it was kind of easy for me to make the transition from how we used to sell SharePoint way back in 2007 and 2008.
You see, back then, in the good old days, you basically had to show up, say “I want to be your SharePoint guy – here are my rates” and start preparing the Statement of Work. There was a huge line of folks wanting SharePoint up and running, most probably because someone sold it to them as part of their Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) and it was supposed to help them “get with the program” in terms of cutting edge technology in the enterprise. Selling SharePoint in 2007 was kind of like shooting fish in a barrel, or to use a more appropriate analogy, owning a successful software company in 1995…if you could not do it, you should be checked for a pulse and seek a different career path. Then, we had the little matter of the economy sliding down the drain faster than Kellogg’s dropped Michael “Are You Holding?” Phelps…and it has become necessary to actually have a story to tell and maybe (heaven forbid) use some selling skills.
SharePoint is, for lack of a better or more politically correct term, the “hatchet” companies are looking for as they “right-size” their way to increased buoyancy in these trying times. Think of SharePoint as Sir Anthony Hopkins in The Efficiency Expert and The Two “Bobs” from Office Space, all rolled into one awesome product…designed to maximize your ability to achieve “The Four Rights” of good knowledge / information / content management.
Let’s walk through a quick example for the sake of illustration. We will use numbers that make the math easy…your individual mileage may vary, depending on your corporate structure and culture, but hopefully you will be able to see the potential when we are done.
You have 5 accountants in your company. On average, each of them spends around 20 hours per week doing their actual job (counting beans and crunching numbers), 5 hours per week dealing with e-mail / meeting requests, 7 hours per week in meetings, and 8 hours per week trying to find information on your dearth of corporate systems, network fileshares, their individual hard drive, e-mail archives, etc., etc.
You implement SharePoint, and the numbers start to swing in your favor. The table below presents a conservative estimate: Before SharePoint After SharePoint Job Performance 20 hours 30 hours E-mail / Meeting Requests 5 hours 2.5 hours Meetings 7 hours 3.5 hours Looking for Information 8 hours 4 hours
So, after implementing SharePoint, the accountants can spend about 50% less time looking for information, 50% less time in meetings, and 50% less time dealing with e-mail / meeting requests. The net result is that each accountant has 10 more hours per week, and 500 more hours per year, to spend doing their job. So, for 5 accountants, that amounts to 2500 hours per year of extra work they can do after implementing SharePoint.
Here comes the very unpleasant part, at least for one of the accountants. If SharePoint has gained you an average of 500 hours per accountant per year, then it stands to reason that you now only need to have 4 accountants, working more efficiently, as a direct result of implementing SharePoint, to accomplish the same amount of work that 5 accountants are doing now.
Let’s keep the momentum going here – once again, we will make the numbers easy. Let’s say you have 500 employees, 50 of which are in management and mission critical positions…we will leave them alone for now. So, of the other 450 employees, let’s extrapolate our 20% force optimization as a result of a properly waged SharePoint implementation, and say that you can eliminate up to 90 positions, with a 0% drop in work performed. Once again, let’s keep the math easy and say that the average yearly salary of those 90 employees is $40,000. SharePoint has just brought you a savings of $360,000…and that does not include:
the additional costs for each consolidated job, such as medical benefits, 401K matching, etc.
the possibility of consolidation in the management ranks as a result of having fewer employees
the financial impact of SharePoint on future operations, as employees start to use SharePoint to store and retrieve information, knowledge and content, further driving up efficiency and driving down the time required to be spent on things other than the core job function of each individual
Once again, keeping things simple, let’s just say that it would not be unexpected for a proper SharePoint implementation at a 500-employee company to save 500,000 or more in the first 12 months after the initial SharePoint project, which will cost you around $50,000-100,000, based on the volume of content and resources required. For larger companies, the cost of the SharePoint project will increase in a linear fashion, while the potential savings tend to increase exponentially.
I almost feel like Vince Offer (the Sham-Wow and Slap Chop guy) – it practically sells itself. Maybe I will get one of those stylish headsets like Vince and use some goop to spike up what’s left of my hair.
So, SharePoint is not just a way to make your company more efficient…it is a bona fide way for you to consolidate company resources and trim excess positions that are only necessary because of current inefficiencies in process and knowledge quality / availability. This is how SharePoint is starting to be billed, at least by the most savvy Microsoft Partners that know their customers and what they need in 2009 and beyond.
So, to keep using the Office Space analogy, how can you protect yourself against becoming Michael Bolton or Samir Notgonnaworkhereanymore? Well, that is simple. Make SharePoint (or whatever Knowledge Management tool your company chooses) your friend. Volunteer to be a content manager, user interface tester, etc. Learn everything you can about the product and how to use it…in addition to gaining some skills with some cutting-edge technology, you might just be saving your job.
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