Editorial
Microsoft SharePoint is once again the most widely used tool for developing intranets. It has ascended to this pinnacle in large part because companies have an existing license for Microsoft 365, so it feels like the easy route.
But make no mistake — SharePoint is not free, and a Microsoft 365-based SharePoint intranet has hidden costs, challenges and implications for communication professionals.
In this article, I’ll look at some of the potentials and the pitfalls of a SharePoint intranet and hopefully give you the tools you need to choose an intranet solution that meets the needs of your organization.
Microsoft 365 = LEGO Technic Without Instructions
Microsoft 365 is basically like a very big box of LEGO Technic, the building bricks to assemble really complicated constructions.
With Microsoft 365, the possibilities seem endless. Only unlike LEGO, this box doesn’t come with a booklet. You have to create the manual for Microsoft 365 yourself. And that is quite a challenge. Especially if you are a communication professional, who is used to a ready-made intranet solution from a well-known supplier..
The 4 Flavors of Intranet Platforms
People have had roughly four flavors to choose from when looking for an intranet solution for years now. (I recently shared a post on LinkedIn in which I named three (link in Dutch), because I left out the ‘oldest’ of the bunch of four.)
They are:
- Design, implement and develop an intranet based on a CMS.
- Buy an independent, stand-alone SaaS solution.
- Choose a shell solution or add-on on top of Microsoft 365.
- Configure and set up based on standard SharePoint and other Microsoft 365 applications.
Microsoft 365 Is Omnipresent
According to the benchmark study of my friends at Dutch agency Evolve (link in Dutch), the most common solution for intranet is the latter flavor: SharePoint and Microsoft 365.
SharePoint’s leadership position isn’t really a surprise. Microsoft has been on the rise in the world of the digital workplace and digital collaborative work since the pandemic. Aside from a small Gallic village that sticks to Google Workspace, Microsoft is pretty much omnipresent.
So if you are faced with the choice of a new intranet solution, because the contract with your current supplier expires, because you are not satisfied with your ‘old’ intranet, or because you are obliged to tender and the term has expired, the argument is often: “We already have SharePoint.” And that’s right ... but choosing Microsoft 365 for your intranet should not be an automatic default.You have to take into account the consequences of this decision.
Microsoft 365 Consists of Multiple Applications
Recently, I asked a group of communications professionals at a large educational organization the question: how many applications are actually in Microsoft 365? The participants’ answers ranged from 20 and 25 to no less than 50 applications. I had to confess I didn’t know the answer either.
The number is somewhere around 30 to 35 apps, but the exact number doesn’t really matter. As communication professionals, we have to realize that Microsoft 365 is not one thing, but a suite, a set of tools. These tools are related to each other in one way or another, are more or at times less well-integrated with each other and all tools have their own purpose (and some tools have the same purpose, but that’s for another article).
Which M365 Tool Do You Use for Which Purpose?
This means that we have to ask ourselves which tool we use for what. If we only look at communicating and collaborating with colleagues, then within Microsoft 365 you can make the following distinction:
- Project Team: Small, fixed group of people, limited set of tasks, deadline and predefined deliverable ➡️ Teams.
- Department or Unit: Larger, sometimes changing group of people, larger set of diverse, recurring tasks, not always a deadline ➡️ it depends, but most of the time people choose Teams.
- Community Around a Certain Theme: Undefined, large(r) group, no concrete tasks, deadline or deliverables ➡️ enterprise social network Viva Engage.
- Entire Organization: Almost everyone, no tasks, deadlines or deliverables and possibly limited interaction ➡️ with SharePoint, and possibly responding with Viva Engage integrated.
If your previous intranet was a social intranet, you could have facilitated at least the third and fourth scenario with one tool. With the switch to Microsoft 365, you are essentially pulling that old intranet apart. The employee experience, now has two entrances — namely Engage and SharePoint — where before there was one — namely your (social) intranet.
Where Is Internal Digital Service?
The digital workplace is basically about three things: internal digital communication, internal digital collaboration and internal digital services.
Now you can say that SharePoint helps you with digital communication, that Teams is there for internal digital collaboration... but where do you do internal digital services in Microsoft 365? I don’t want to say that it is not possible to serve employees, but it takes time and manpower. This is no different with other solutions, but it is something to keep in mind (because service is the stepchild of the digital workplace).
SharePoint Isn't a CMS, It's a Page Builder
SharePoint has been one of the standard tools for developing an intranet for decades. The difference is the mediocre results you achieved with versions 2013 and 2016 are in no way representative of how things are now with SharePoint Online. But it still is noticeably different from the out of the box intranet you might be using now, and that requires some getting used to.
The big difference between SharePoint as a solution for your intranet and the vast majority of alternatives is that SharePoint is not a content management system (CMS). SharePoint is what you can call a page builder.
SharePoint Has no ‘Back-End’
If you previously managed your pages in the ‘back-end’ of your intranet, in the management environment of a CMS, then SharePoint is a fundamentally different experience. It has no back-end, which means you have to create pages on the front-end.
This isn’t necessarily worse than a classic CMS, but it is different. And it demands something from your editors and content owners. Because where previously they might have been responsible for one section of the intranet (e.g. HR information) that they managed on the back-end in the CMS, they now must edit a live page on the front end.
SharePoint’s Structure Is Different
Another difference from a CMS-based intranet is that instead of having one tree structure with all the pages below it or a single bin of classified content, in SharePoint you create separate sites for different sections of your intranet. And you hang those sites in a structure, whichrequires strong navigation design.
Good Agreements With Editors Are Crucial
A good agreement with the editors and content owners is important here, as it is with other intranet solutions. Reach a consensus on the following topics to start:
- What information needs are we trying to meet?
- Which content belongs where?
- Who controls which part of the content?
- Who decides when to create new information?
- When do you choose text, image or video?
- How do you make information readable and findable?
- What is the policy on deleting or archiving content?
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SharePoint intranets also require an established content plan. And with large, extensive SharePoint intranets, decisions on how employees will navigate it requires a lot of careful thought. After all, you have several separate sites in SharePoint and not just one uniform environment. You can link those sites together and ‘roll up’ information based on target groups, for example, but comms pros typically cannot or are not allowed to do this themselves, so you have to work closely with your IT colleagues, among others.
Costs Lie in Communication and Adoption
SharePoint Isn't Free
A small intranet for an organization of 1,000 employees can easily cost several tens of thousands of euros per year. And that’s only the license fees you pay to your supplier.
This makes a SharePoint intranet all the more alluring if you already pay for it. But SharePoint is of course not free — the costs are factored into the license price of Microsoft 365.
SharePoint’s Versatility Is an Advantage and a Disadvantage
However much your license costs, you will also incur costs to set up and configure your SharePoint intranet. Here’s where the many options a LEGO Technic offers becomes a pitfall. Because you then have to answer questions like:
- What exactly do you want to build?
- And why exactly that?
- What needs and expectations of employees does it support?
- What vision and strategy of your organization does it fulfill?
If you only focus on functional requirements and wishes, you can build just about anything you want with SharePoint (that’s not entirely true. More on that in a moment). But if you do that, it will of course cost a lot of time and a lot of money. What you buy off the shelf with a standard solution, you have to configure and set up with SharePoint. So whatever you may save on licensing costs, you will spend even more in the go-live phase.
The Hidden Cost of Human Effort
Another cost that never makes it into the spreadsheet comparisons of license costs and setup costs is the hidden cost in human effort.
I don’t mean the effort of your project team, but rather that of your colleagues, the people for whom you are developing your intranet. Think about it: if you use SharePoint for organization-wide communication, Viva Engage for community-based collaboration and Teams for project-based collaboration, your colleagues now have to use three different tools for three different purposes.
Change Requires Time and Attention - and Both Are Limited
While this distinction is easy to make and easy to explain, you still have to explain it to employees. This requires effort from Communication colleagues, IT specialists, adoption specialists — none of which is free — but especially from the recipient of your adoption campaign, namely the ordinary employees. The time and attention they must spend to get used to the new intranet are both limited resources. So there’s a cost involved here, too.
SharePoint Can’t Do Everything
As I wrote, you can build anything with LEGO Technic. But even with a very good box of bricks, you can’t build everything. Because maybe there is just that one brick missing in the box for what you’re building.
This also applies to SharePoint: you can do a lot with it, but not everything.
Over the past few years, I have listed the possibilities and impossibilities of different intranet solutions for various clients. The following is a list of things you typically could do in an intranet, that you cannot in SharePoint. Rather, you have to go into the broader Microsoft 365 suite to do any of these.
- Send a message or chat with an individual colleague
- Create and share forms and/or polls
- Mention/tag people in content (although you can in comments)
- Receive notifications
- See messages from colleagues in a timeline
So a user needs to jump into Microsoft 365 to chat in Teams, create forms in Forms, exchange information in groups in Viva Engage, and receive notifications in the Microsoft 365 environment, especially in Outlook.
So while it’s fine to make the strategic choice to use a SharePoint intranet you should anticipate a number of conversations with your colleagues about why certain functionalities are no longer possible and why other functions are in a different place. For anyone migrating from a ready-made intranet solution to SharePoint, this will require quite a bit of effort.
Client and Ownership of Intranets
Self-designed and developed intranets demand a lot from its owner and client, not only in terms of design, but also in the management and further development of such a platform.
SaaS: You Know What You’re Buying
On the other hand, when you choose a SaaS solution, you know what you are buying. You can have a reasonable expectation of the intranet you will have in the next 4-6 years. You bump along with the supplier’s roadmap and typically you have some influence on it. This sets a clear and predictable course for a product owner or client.
Customization: Mature Commissioning Needed
With an intranet designed and managed in-house, you have to watch:
- Market changes.
- What your supplier offers.
- What the open-source community might develop.
- What you could do with that.
- And how you can use all those things for your colleagues and your organization.
This requires an investment of time and effort from a product owner, platform owner or client. And it requires a higher level of maturity.
SharePoint Also Asks Something of Owner(s)
For a long time, I thought that an intranet based on SharePoint and Microsoft 365 would let you more or less live and work as if it were a SaaS solution. Here too, you would just bump along on the roadmap the specialists in Redmond created.
But now I see it differently. Because not only have the developments of Microsoft 365 sped up, Microsoft’s development philosophy has dramatically changed from what we’re used to. Normally, a product moves from innovation through adoption and management to retention/migration, but for Microsoft 365, just about all of the products are now in a continuous innovation phase.
This is great from a technical and functional standpoint, because you can expect new things from your Microsoft 365 tools almost every week. But this is a lot to put on that intranet product owner. As with custom-made intranets, you must therefore understand:
- The changes Microsoft has in store.
- What you could do with that.
- And how you can best use all this for your colleagues.
So if you, as a communication professional, were used to managing your (social) intranet with the editorial and content hat on, it will certainly remain relevant in the future. But you will also assume new responsibilities that used to be those of a product owner or functional administrator of a custom intranet.
Not for Internal Comms, But Also Not for ICT Alone
I believe communications shouldn’t take on this task alone. We are not trained for that and we might not even like doing it. But the responsibility is there and someone needs to take it. And I don’t think it can or should lie with ICT. It is not just a technical issue, because it is about innovation, adoption, communication and collaboration.
As far as I am concerned, this is a joint responsibility and a shared interest for what Tabhita Minten and I call an “association of owners.”
When Do You Choose SaaS and When SharePoint?
So how do you choose? Would an intranet based on SharePoint and Microsoft 365 be better for you or should you just choose a SaaS solution? I’ll give the classic consultant’s answer: it depends.
Among other things, it depends on:
- What the work in your organization looks like: it can make quite a difference whether you teach or provide care, have a lot of office workers or people in the field, and so on.
- The vision and strategy for the digital workplace in the broadest sense, so not only the intranet or even Microsoft 365: I mean the entire digital landscape, which is broader than just your ICT vision.
- The needs and expectations of employees: it differs quite a bit whether people ‘just’ want a place to find colleagues and read corporate news, or whether they want to work in communities with all kinds of innovative and social themes.
- How much budget you have to spend on (a) audience research, design, setup and configuration, (b) content migration and creation, (c) adoption and communication, and (d) support of employees in daily use.
- And in the deepest sense, it depends on how much control you want over the experience and perception of your colleagues with your digital workplace, so how much control you want over the digital employee experience.
In short, it comes down to this:
SaaS Solution
Choose a ready-to-use (SaaS) intranet solution if you:
- Want to be able to use a relatively large amount of functionality in a short period of time,
- Especially with the communication hat on management and editors,
- Don’t necessarily want to integrate all tools in the digital landscape,
- As a client/owner, you may not be ready for alternatives,
- And attaches importance to predictable one-off and annual costs.
SharePoint and Microsoft 365
Choose an intranet based on SharePoint and Microsoft 365 if you:
- Have a strong strategic preference for Microsoft solutions,
- Want to hitch a ride on the rapid innovation of this supplier,
- You’re OK with explaining to employees the variation in the Microsoft 365 suite,
- Free up time and money to guide and support colleagues in this,
- And as an owner/client have/can build up a certain level of maturity.
Solution on Microsoft 365
If neither of these options are a fit, then an intermediate form might be for you: A number of standard intranet solutions are available on top of Microsoft 365 that bring together different aspects of the suite in a single interface.
Tailor-Made Solution
Choose a custom-designed and developed/equipped intranet if:
- Your IT philosophy leans towards best-of-breed.
- You want to integrate many tools into your digital landscape (or features in it).
- As a client, you can and want to monitor what developments there are in the market/community and what their impact is.
- You want ultimate control over the user experience of your colleagues.
- And are willing to pay for this in terms of staffing and budget.
Summary
What is the best intranet solution for your organization? Again: it depends. I hope this article has given you some tools to get started with the answer.
Please note: this post wasn’t meant to express a value judgment about any of the options, but rather to raise potential misunderstandings (‘SharePoint is free”) and where the costs are with one solution vs.another. Microsoft 365 is still a valid strategic choice. And in the SharePoint Store you can find countless free tools and solutions, including open source, that help with specific issues. And of course you can still develop things or have them developed for your situation.
Like any choice, choosing SharePoint has certain consequences. I hope you now have the tools to map out and anticipate those consequences.
If you only remember two things from this article, it’s this: SharePoint isn’t free. And whatever choice you make will have an impact on your project, management, innovation, budget and commissioning.
Editor's note: Brush up on other intranet-related topics below:
- The Future of Intranets in 2025 — An intranet isn't just a technology project. It’s a living digital ecosystem, powered by people, process and technology. And that won't change any time soon.
- Why Organizations Need an Intranet Content Strategy — The time to revisit — or create — your intranet strategy is before you introduce generative AI to the intranet.
- The Modern Intranet Comes With Modern Challenges — The modern intranet is, by definition, multi-faceted. It demands an eclectic mix of skills and practices.
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