| |June 20179CIOReviewAll technology partners who want to be competitive in the future must have investments and strategies to stay up to date and be forward thinkingThe amount of time it takes an IT organization to implement processes and designs has decreased, but I am confident this can and will improve. Who better to develop and implement the process than the actual team that wants it implemented? Like a coach, I want to have my IT organization on the sideline providing guidance and encouraging our customers to execute their vision. I believe SharePoint will be fully used and managed by business users and not need technology professionals for creation, management or support. However, IT still has a responsibility to inform its business users of the full breadth of capabilities of the platform. While the more pedestrian web and document management capabilities are well known, few business users are aware of the more advanced capabilities of SharePoint with respect to compliance, document retention policies, advanced business intelligence and analytics, ability to integrate with line-of-business databases, and reporting. Exploiting these features can reduce overall operating costs by potentially eliminating or reducing redundant tools, and also drive greater adoption of the SharePoint platform by demonstrating its diversity and breadth of functionality.The days of laptops being turned in at a physical IT helpdesk for upgrades are over, so I am happy to see the Microsoft suite of tools, including SharePoint, move to a cloud based system where I only pay for what I use, not licenses based on projections or an audit. I must be able to provide new functionality to my existing tools without impacting my customers' daily work schedule. I also need to allow the residents of Fulton County to gather information, submit information, and accomplish their tasks easily from their devices in their homes, places of work, or wherever they happen to be. SharePoint allows me to do all this today as new features and functionality are released. Of course, there are some key technology issues we must continue to support in the IT world including compliance, data encryption and security, capital versus operating costs, backup storage and location (domestic versus international), etc. All technology partners who want to be competitive in the future must have investments and strategies to stay up to date and be forward thinking.In summary, I predict a strong future for SharePoint with it becoming more nimble and evolving the way we do business and leading the industry as it changes. Sallie Wright
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