How to convince your boss that SharePoint and Office 365 is the way to go?

I get emails like this all the time.

“Greg, I love SharePoint and Office 365, but I have a hard time convincing our leadership, they have lots of concerns about usability and security and think we still need to stay on premises or keep using our in-house file share. I have given all sorts of presentations, and they are all very stubborn and don’t buy it. Can you recommend any tips on how to win over the management?”

I do have few techniques on how to deal with stubborn people, but they are pretty violent in nature :-) , so let me try and do this by explaining some arguments that I hope will help you convince your management and senior leadership to reconsider SharePoint Online and Office 365.

1. Access from anywhere

No need to VPN. Should I even say more? Just like Gmail and Wikipedia, you can access SharePoint and Office 365 from any computer with Wi-Fi and a browser. No need to mess around with VPN tokens, and passwords – you can access SharePoint from any device and any location.

2. Security

OK, I am not a security expert by any means, but I laugh when a client tells me that their in-house server is safer than Microsoft’s one. I can think of a handful of companies that can match the might and technical capabilities of Microsoft. You can read more about security in SharePoint and Office 365 here.

3. Predictable costs

With SharePoint Online and Office 365 you pay per user per license. So the math is pretty simple. Just multiply the number of users by the cost of your plan’s license and that is the cost you would pay.  Period. No more guessing and when the server will need the replacement and anything like that.

4. You cannot beat the value

No other tool offers you more bang for the buck. I remember when I signed up for my own Office 365 account, I “just” paid for SharePoint and OneDrive – because that’s what was included in the plan back then. I paid like $11 for my license per month. Today, for the same money, I have Yammer, Teams, Office 365 Groups, Planner, Microsoft Flow, PowerApps, Power BI. WOW! It is like you marry a guy who lived with parents all the time and then it turns out that he can cook, starts to make good money and is good looking as well!

5. Gets better by the day

Just like a good bottle of wine, that gets better with age. Improvements are happening daily and are more in tune with ever-changing requirements and reality.