How to Manage a Business, with Microsoft SharePoint

How to manage a business: Where to start?

Good business management begins first of all with a clear direction. Without a precise mission every operational decision risks becoming a compromise dictated by urgency instead of a calculated step toward a shared goal.

However, once a mission is declared, it must be translated into organizational culture, processes, roles and metrics. This is where the governance framework comes into play, meaning the set of rules, responsibilities and workflows that orchestrates the company and prevents entropy from taking over.

Let’s imagine a company that wants to offer sustainable logistics solutions. If the sales department focuses only on market share, the technical office only on innovation in a narrow sense and the finance department only on cutting costs, the likely consequence is a jerky acceleration, with pushes in different directions.

The shared strategy serves precisely this purpose, namely to bring every function back to objectives consistent with the overall mandate.

In practice this means:

• defining a few measurable priorities (for example, reducing emissions per shipment by 15% within the next fiscal year);

• assigning each department precise responsibilities on those priorities (sales sells low impact solutions, the technical office certifies technologies, finance evaluates investments);

• aligning incentive systems on the same goals.

When these points are made explicit and available to everyone, friction is drastically reduced. There is no need to negotiate objectives every time: they are already set out in an official document and, above all, alive in daily processes, from the approval flow of a new project to the checklists for supplier qualification. The result? Fewer remedial meetings, fewer reworks due to misunderstandings, fewer resources wasted due to lack of coordination.

The challenge, of course, is to give concrete form to these principles and keep them updated. This is why many organizations use SharePoint as a corporate intranet: a single hub where the strategy takes shape and becomes consultable, measurable, contextualized.

Example of a SharePoint intranet created with intranet.ai

Let us think about directives, those that revolve around workplace safety, privacy management and purchasing ethics. In general, they tend to multiply and get lost in network folders or conflicting versions circulated by email.

With SharePoint, however, every policy resides in a document library subject to versioning and access control. If the anti-money laundering regulation is updated, the legal office can simply upload the new version and an approval flow (Power Automate) automatically notifies department heads.

No more duplicate and outdated PDFs: there is only one source of truth.

The governance framework also lives in the clarity of roles. In SharePoint it is possible to publish an interactive organizational chart that draws on Microsoft Entra ID: each person's profile shows function, responsibilities, active projects and key skills. When the company opens a branch, it is enough to update the personal data. The intranet pages automatically reconnect, avoiding inconsistencies that generate email chains to find out who decides what.

Every procedure, from vacation requests to the start of an R&D project, can be described in SharePoint pages enriched with video tutorials, feedback forms and links to external systems.

In this way, knowledge does not remain confined to the veterans' minds but becomes collective heritage. New hires and colleagues from distant locations find the same answer without having to interrupt other teams. All this translates into a time saving, limiting the dispersion of know-how.

Let us take an example to understand better.

Suppose that the company decides to introduce a zero-emission last-mile service. In a context without clear governance, the marketing department might launch the promotional campaign before logistics has defined delivery standards, while customer service waits for instructions on the assistance protocol.

With SharePoint, however, the sequence becomes orchestrated:

1. Publication of the project sheet on the strategic area site, with objectives, KPIs and sponsors.
   
   
2. Operational managers validate feasibility, finance checks the budget, the risk manager maps possible impacts.
   
   
3. Technical documents, contracts with electric vehicle suppliers, marketing guidelines are saved in the same library, with granular permissions.
   
   
4. Management views data on costs, progress and milestones directly on the intranet home page.
   
   

The result is that each function operates with consistent information, without duplicating files or reinventing procedures, and geographic distance loses significance.

What is certain is that a course must be corrected when market or regulatory conditions change. SharePoint offers tools to do it in an orderly way.

If a new ESG regulation comes into force:

• the compliance office updates the policy, the system generates a notification and requests read confirmation from recipients;

• the knowledge base pages are populated with FAQs;

• an internal survey (created with Microsoft Forms) measures staff understanding, directing further training actions.

Everything takes place within the same platform, avoiding the "fig leaf" effect of formally issued guidelines that are ignored in practice.

Setting the course, therefore, means transforming the vision into a network of processes and rules that guide the business daily life. A well-configured SharePoint intranet acts as a rudder and compass: it makes the strategy visible, distributes roles and responsibilities, hosts the heritage of skills and streamlines the update cycle.

How to manage risk and competition in business

To manage a business means living with two constant pressures: on one side the risks that can halt the operational machine, on the other competitors who erode margins and reputation.

Risk and business competition therefore become two sides of the same management work. The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty and rivalry (also because it is impossible) but to organize them within a system of monitoring, response and continuous evolution.

A SharePoint intranet, properly configured, provides the structure to do this methodically, reducing the reliance on scattered files, ad hoc chats or disconnected Excel sheets.

It all starts with an honest snapshot of the scenario: cyber attacks, regulatory non-compliance, process errors, supplier delays, fluctuations in raw material prices.

Each risk has a different nature but requires the same logical path.

In the following table, we see how to map out a simple roadmap using SharePoint Online.

For cyber attacks it is very important to know how to shorten the communication chain.

With Microsoft Defender the incident logs flow into a dedicated Teams channel. A connector automatically inserts in the SharePoint register an item with severity level. At status change (“Resolved”) the technical evidence (forensic report, list of corrected files) remains linked to the entry and the next ISO27001 compliance audit finds everything in order.

With the shocks of recent years, the ability to react of the supply chain has become a sensitive topic. For example, through a Vendor Portal in SharePoint, partners upload quality certifications, ethical declarations, business continuity plans.

When a document expires, an automatic reminder prompts the supplier and informs the purchasing office. If the new certification does not arrive by the deadline, the “Non Compliance” risk goes from yellow to red in the dashboard, and there are no surprises when it is time to renew sales authorizations.

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Overview of Microsoft Defender, integrable with SharePoint

In addition to defending yourself, you also need to anticipate others' moves in advance. In short, you need to know how to compete. Many small businesses delegate competitive intelligence to occasional Google searches.

With SharePoint it is possible to build a more robust system without investing in expensive platforms.

Monitoring is not sporadic. The business practically moves to continuous monitoring without overload of emails or additional tools.

Integrating risk mapping and competitor monitoring into a single collaboration ecosystem allows you to:

• reduce the time between a critical event and an organized response;
  
• turn scattered data into a structured and shared asset;
• anticipate competitive moves with reactive plans based on real-time analysis;
• show clients, partners and authorities that there is a transparent risk-competition management process.

In other words, SharePoint becomes the control room where defense and attack feed each other, and the business navigates with compass, radar and coordinated team, ready to adjust course whenever the context requires it.

How to manage business growth, even with multiple locations

Growth is appealing until it starts to strain the joints of the organization.

Processes that worked with ten people certainly cannot hold up with one hundred.

A single warehouse becomes a problem when a second location opens. Initial enthusiasm is consumed by version errors, overlapping roles, and out-of-control IT costs.

Managing the expansion of the business therefore implies constant organizational, financial, and technological engineering that prevents revenue increases from overwhelming the structure.

When branches multiply, the challenge of how to manage multiple business locations arises: brand consistency, aligned data, secure digital identities, common operational practices, but at the same time flexible with respect to local needs.

Here too the SharePoint intranet comes into play as a balancing point. Not just a simple file archive, but a platform where documents, workflows, security roles, and performance metrics converge, signaling critical growth thresholds in advance.

Every company has measurable breaking points, those "joints" we mentioned earlier that can be stretched to the limit during the growth process. Knowing them in advance allows reinforcements to be planned before the system collapses under the push of expansion.

In the following table, we present the three main critical indicators to monitor.

Linking these indicators to automated workflows prevents management from realizing problems only when financial statements already show them.

When locations multiply, information dispersion is certainly the first enemy. SharePoint solves the problem if it becomes the single source of truth for documents, workflows, and access management.

But saving to the cloud is not enough; it is then necessary to classify.

Each business area has a group site with standardized libraries: contracts, operating manuals, KPIs, marketing materials. Metadata columns replace nested folders: document type, version, language, expiration date. Internal search gains precision because it queries attributes and not just file names. The new branch manager finds regulations, checklists, and training videos in just a few clicks, reducing onboarding from two weeks to three days.

With Power Automate, each request follows an immutable path, even if signatories work miles apart. A purchase order starts from the point of sale, goes through the area manager, reaches accounting, and approvals flow via email or Teams, without PDF attachments. The system rejects incomplete documents and stamps each step with date and time.

With Microsoft Entra ID, SharePoint inherits global roles and groups. When opening a new branch, simply register colleagues in the "Turin Branch" group so that they automatically gain access only to predefined sites, apps, and printers. If a colleague changes role, the group update propagates everywhere in just a few seconds.

Measuring, adapting, innovating: a cycle of continuous improvement

Growing without breaking means designing an architecture where people, money and technology expand in a proportional way. SharePoint provides the framework to do this: classified documents, sealed workflows, identities under control, data that immediately signals when a process has reached its limit.

This way the business can open new branches, hire hundreds of people, launch product lines, yet still maintain the same operational clarity as when it was a single office with ten desks.

However, a business that grows without questioning its own numbers is driving with the lights off.

It takes a mechanism that, day after day, turns data into decisions, decisions into actions, and actions into new information to analyze. This virtuous cycle (measure, adapt, innovate) is fueled by key indicators (KPI, OKR) and task automation.

Every business function handles dozens of figures (sales, margins, delivery times, customer service requests), but only some deserve the status of key performance indicators (KPI).

Identifying them is a pruning job. You select those that, if they improve or worsen, anticipate the economic fate of the business. Often these are simple values (for example average collection time or contract renewal rate), whose power lies in linking operational activities and financial results.

A second level is offered by objectives and key results (OKR): they do not measure the state, but the desired change. “Reduce order processing time from 72 to 48 hours within the quarter” is an OKR that summarizes ambition, deadline and verification metric.

If KPIs take snapshots, OKRs set things in motion.

The frequent problem is the dispersion of these metrics in Excel files kept by individual offices or in reports sent by email and soon forgotten. This is where the intranet comes into play, connected to core data through Power BI and to the operational governance tools available in Microsoft 365: Planner, Project, Lists and Power Automate.

Power BI draws from source systems (ERP, CRM, warehouse software) and produces summaries that update without human intervention. We are not talking about static charts: the logistics officer can filter orders of a single branch, the sales director can break down revenues by geographic area, the quality manager can trace from a global index back to the individual complaint. All within the same SharePoint page, without having to open other applications.

Web part to integrate Power BI reports in SharePoint

The combination of Planner, Microsoft Lists and the features previously offered by Project for the web (now integrated into Planner) makes it possible to link these indicators to the goals.

When a team records progress (for example, reporting the completion of a shipment in record time) the related goal is automatically updated through Power Automate. The system sends reminders, flags bottlenecks and updates the progress status in real time, making it visible at every hierarchical level. This way everyone knows whether the route set at the beginning of the quarter is being followed or needs to be adjusted.

As a practical example, consider an administrative team that wants to improve the timeliness of purchase request approvals. Each request is logged in a SharePoint list connected to Power BI, which displays its status in real time.

When a manager approves or rejects a request, the action is automatically tracked thanks to Power Automate, also updating the task planning in Planner.

Everything happens within a single environment, Microsoft 365.

Measuring, however, is only the first step: processes must react to the numbers without waiting for meetings or reminder emails.

Power Automate, a low-code automation tool integrated into Microsoft 365, makes it possible to design flows that start from a measurable event (exceeding a threshold, approving a document, acquiring a new customer) and produce actions consistent with business rules. In addition, it also offers advanced features based on artificial intelligence, such as integration with Copilot for creating flows through natural language commands and intelligent document processing.

Examples of preconfigured Power Automate flows for SharePoint

Let’s imagine a flow for managing critical stock. When the remaining quantity of a material drops below the minimum level defined in SharePoint, Power Automate can perform three operations in sequence: it opens a purchase request in the accounting system, notifies the purchasing manager on Teams, and creates a follow-up task if after twenty-four hours the request has not been validated.

No manual filling, no risk of forgetting, full traceability.

In this cycle of continuous improvement, the SharePoint intranet and the Microsoft 365 platform, enriched with new AI features such as automatic document categorization and intelligent search, are not neutral tools but represent the infrastructure that makes the pace of improvement possible: indicators visible to everyone, goals immune to deadlines, flows that act before the error spreads, integrated training and governance.

This way the company learns to look at itself in the mirror of its own numbers, correct the course without panic, innovate without blind leaps. In other words, it learns how to manage a business with the same discipline with which a craftsman sharpens his tools every day. Because it knows that the real risk is not missing a stroke, but having a dull blade when precision is needed.

If you are considering how to bring this method into your organization, the intranet.ai team can help you design and implement customized solutions based on Microsoft 365 and SharePoint.

What is the role of governance in managing a business?

Governance is not bureaucracy, but a system that coordinates decisions, roles, and actions. It works like a compass that guides the organization, reduces friction, and clarifies processes, aligning the different business functions toward common goals.

Why is a shared mission not enough to ensure good management?

A mission, if it remains only a document, does not produce concrete effects. It must be translated into organizational culture, rules, responsibilities, and workflows, thus becoming a real guide for the company’s operational and strategic choices.

How can a SharePoint intranet support business management?

SharePoint acts as a central hub for documents, policies, procedures, and roles. It allows you to have a single source of truth, manage versions and access, orchestrate projects with approval workflows and dashboards, and transform know-how into shared knowledge accessible to everyone.

How can business risks be managed with SharePoint?

Risks are recorded in SharePoint lists with key fields and linked documents, assessed through approval flows, and monitored with Power BI dashboards. Corrective actions are automated and periodic checks ensure continuous updates without information dispersion.

How to address competition using SharePoint?

SharePoint allows you to create dedicated competitor profiles, collect news through automatic feeds, compare products with lists and Power BI views, and develop responsive projects in protected workspaces. In this way, competitive intelligence becomes a structured and ongoing process.

What challenges arise in business growth and how to address them?

Growth brings organizational, financial, and technological issues. SharePoint helps redesign decision-making flows, monitor financial data, distribute content on regional hubs, and maintain operational consistency across multiple locations, avoiding information dispersion and inefficiencies.

How to ensure consistency and continuity across multiple company locations?

Each area has standardized sites and libraries with metadata that make search more precise. With Microsoft Entra ID roles are managed centrally, so opening a new branch or changing an employee’s role is automatically reflected throughout the digital ecosystem.

How to measure and improve business performance?

KPIs and OKRs are monitored with Power BI connected to business systems and updated in real time. With Power Automate processes automatically react to events, updating tasks and objectives, so the organization can adapt and innovate without delays.

What is the role of artificial intelligence in this process?

Artificial intelligence, integrated into Microsoft 365 through Copilot, simplifies the creation of flows, automates document management, and makes search smarter. In this way, the cycle of continuous improvement becomes faster and more effective.