Optimizing Microsoft 365: Document management for consultants

With huge volumes of information flowing in and out of their firms every day, consultants need to know that their data is accurate, secure, and governed properly. Unfortunately, many firms still store data on outdated, disparate systems, leading to inefficient document management for consultants, disjointed processes, and security risks. To help their professionals work efficiently and securely, and to provide the best possible service to their clients, consulting firms need to unify their data to accelerate and improve their most critical decisions and processes.

Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based, collaborative document management platform that can help your consulting firm streamline business processes, maximize document management, and increase employee productivity. Learn how your firm can optimize the Microsoft 365 platform to make the most out of your investment.

Promote engagement and team collaboration with Microsoft SharePoint

At consulting firms, where hundreds or thousands of internal and external stakeholders communicate every day, connectivity is critical. Making sure your team members have access to the right people and information reduces the risk of costly errors, such as sending the wrong document to the wrong client or creating an error-filled report. Such mistakes can pose serious reputational risks to your firm, and endanger client satisfaction and retention.

Microsoft SharePoint, part of the Microsoft 365 suite, can help your users stay connected via an intranet network of sites for each team within the firm. These mobile-accessible sites make it easy for teammates to communicate with one another, collaborate on content, share reports with partners, keep track of events, and manage tasks — anytime, anywhere.

SharePoint also allows for extensive customization, giving users the flexibility to build in their preferred business processes and apply their firm’s branding and preferred layouts. For example, a client-facing SharePoint site can include a customized welcome page with a specific client’s name and the goals your consulting firm will help that client achieve. By personalizing your client-facing sites, you can increase client satisfaction and boost your company’s retention rates.

All SharePoint sites also come with a document library that can function as a central repository for all documentation related to an engagement or team. Thanks to SharePoint’s version-control features, teams can easily identify the last person to work on a document and view any edits they may have made. If necessary, users with permissions can restore a previous version of that document.

Use templates for consistent document management

Company-wide templates help consulting firms ensure that their daily document management and business operations remain consistent, efficient, and accurate. With Microsoft 365, you can choose from the many prebuilt templates that Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint offer, or you can create your own.

By using Microsoft’s templates to create essential documents — including sales receipts, invoices, balance sheets, financial statements, and quarterly reports — your teams can save hours of time and effort every week. Your users can also customize the templates to fit your firm’s brand style and business requirements. With features and design elements like headers, tables of contents, and user access lists that spell out who can contribute to or share the document, your users can ensure that firm documents remain consistent across departments and clients — ensuring professionalism and maintaining firm brand style and standards.

Collaborate more efficiently with Microsoft Teams engagement hubs

Microsoft Teams is a communication hub with chat, video conferencing, and voice call functionality. Its most valuable capability, however, is its seamless integration with other Microsoft tools like Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive, as well as other third-party apps that enable cross-department collaboration.

Workers often waste time switching back and forth between multiple apps, and need even more time after switching to get back into their flow. By integrating Microsoft Teams with other Microsoft 365 apps, you can give your teams this lost time back, reducing hassle and improving their productivity.

Microsoft Teams channels also help users organize their conversations by project or client. For example, your firm could have a Microsoft Teams channel specifically for employees responsible for following up on leads. Team members can then easily collaborate with colleagues responsible for handling specific clients by giving them access to dedicated SharePoint sites and sharing related files via OneDrive. Other team members who aren’t handling those accounts won’t have access, and won’t have to navigate the clutter of files and messages that are unrelated to their jobs.

Users can also save time by using the chat feature to pin documents for easy access. For example, a marketing and business development team member can pin a document containing a client’s buyer personas in the team chat dedicated to that client. Or a project management team can pin a project brief in their chat for quick reference. By making content easy to find and access, Microsoft Teams helps enable easier, more frictionless collaboration.

Maximize your Microsoft 365 investment

Intapp and Microsoft know that client and industry expectations are always evolving, which is why the two companies have formed a strategic partnership to drive innovation and digital transformation to support the modern workplace. With Intapp’s domain expertise and industry-specific solutions combined with Microsoft’s powerful technologies, consulting firms can deliver the best outcomes possible for their clients.

Intapp Collaboration & Content transforms the way firms deliver seamless client experiences by combining the power of Microsoft 365 with Intapp. Users can expand the abilities of Microsoft Teams to easily organize document management across all departments and meet industry-specific goals and requirements. Intapp Collaboration & Content also integrates with Microsoft Planner for task management, Microsoft Power Automate for workflow, and Microsoft Power BI for advanced reporting and analytics — helping your firm perform more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

Ready to maximize your Microsoft 365 investment with Intapp Collaboration & Content?

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