Why You Should Care About Content Migration

With Microsoft due to end support for SharePoint 2013 in April, it’s possible one of your tasks is to update your content management system.

Even if your company content is not currently stored on SharePoint 2013, relocating documents from legacy systems to Microsoft 365 makes a lot of sense. Microsoft 365 is at the heart of many corporate cloud strategies for good reason: it is robust, fully featured, widely used and easy to implement.

Relocating your content to the Microsoft 365 cloud can help you reduce IT costs and improve business agility by making it easier for remote and flexible workers to access key documents and work collaboratively. A migration to Microsoft 365 can also give you an excuse to review your content and its associated policies and permissions. The chances are your organisation is hoarding documents it no longer needs, or maybe even records that could create compliance issues if not handled correctly. Not only that, but if content is kept on systems that are no longer supported by vendors, there is also a growing danger of data breaches.

Risks

Consider, for example, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2016. The regulation carries maximum fines of €20 million (about £17 million at December 2022 rates) or 4% of annual global turnover, whichever is higher. UK company leaders may think GDPR is a concern for European organisations, but that is not the case. Two of the 20 largest GDPR fines levied so far have been on UK companies. Beyond these financial hits, the organisations faced significant reputational risk from the security breaches.

While it is true these GDPR fines were levied while the UK was still part of the European Union, and the law stopped applying to British businesses after December 31, 2020, any company that offers goods or services to EU citizens still must abide by the regulation. Furthermore, the European legislation was replaced by a UK GDPR which is essentially the same as Europe’s. And GDPR is just one area where poor document management can be a risk.

Compliance issues

In mid-market enterprises it is commonplace for documentation to be gathered and stored with little regard for standardisation or compliance issues. Issues such as siloed storage and lack of metadata can result in poor usability or lack of information in the best of cases, or significant regulatory and compliance risk in the worst.

For this reason, you should consider reviewing your content management arrangements in 2023—and be aware that while upgrading to a cloud-based system such as Microsoft 365 is highly beneficial, it is also not a job that can be taken lightly. To get it right, download your free guide now.