What makes SharePoint an effective strategic tool?
Based on our and our clients’ experience, SharePoint is an excellent platform for three essential aspects of strategy: making it visible, reinforcing it, and enabling strategic learning. In this way, strategy is brought closer to everyday work and becomes concrete in terms of skills and actions.
Strategy belongs to the entire organization, and everyone contributes to its success. In this context, SharePoint offers the opportunity to reach the majority of employees repeatedly, day after day. Learning content is easily accessible to everyone in a familiar environment and embedded in everyday tools.
SharePoint enables visibility and reinforcement
Strategy execution begins with making the strategy visible. SharePoint excels in this by providing employees with a clear view of strategic priorities, required capabilities, and areas for development. Strategic focus areas can be highlighted, along with the capabilities and skills needed to support them.
At the same time, repetition is achieved. A SharePoint-based library is visited frequently and can easily be linked to news, articles, and internal communications. This creates a powerful way to reinforce strategy, and it’s far more effective than slides, occasional mentions by managers, or ceremonial speeches.
Speculand (2021) identifies 11 reasons for strategy failure. Visibility and reinforcement help address two of them:
- Poor communication of the strategy and its execution
- Weak understanding of the strategy and insufficient reinforcement
SharePoint enables effective strategic learning in two ways
Why does SharePoint work well for strategic learning? It enables two key approaches: microlearning and reflection.
Speculand (2021) also highlights “insufficient training and capability development” as a reason for failure. Strategic learning directly addresses these both.
Microlearning
Microlearning is an approach where knowledge and skills are acquired in short, easily accessible, and practical segments. However, it is not just about quick information delivery. Its core purpose is to spark learning and provide stimuli that lead to reflection.
Reflection
Reflection means consciously pausing to examine one’s own and others’ thoughts, emotions, and actions. Its goal is to learn from past experiences and continuously improve performance. Reflection can be divided into self-reflection and shared reflection.
SharePoint provides regular opportunities for learning
SharePoint is an excellent platform for microlearning because it is already part of daily work: employees visit it on average 3.36 times per day. This creates multiple opportunities throughout the week to engage in learning or schedule it into one’s calendar. Short, few-minute videos fit perfectly into this context. Over time, these small learning moments gradually build strategic capabilities—even for those with busy schedules.
SharePoint also lowers the barrier to participation, as demonstrated, for example, at LähiTapiola.
“We feel that bringing the training programs into the SharePoint environment lowers the threshold to participate.” – Heidi Karhu, LocalTapiola group
SharePoint enables reflection as a key strategic tool
SharePoint supports reflection in two ways. First, it offers low-threshold opportunities for quick learning moments, leaving time for reflection. A short video combined with a few minutes of reflection easily fits into both individual and team schedules. Second, SharePoint integrates with other Office tools, such as Teams, where discussions and collaboration can be built.
Strategic capabilities can be developed effectively through this kind of collaborative learning. Teams can watch content together and discuss the ideas it raises. Through shared reflection, the strategy remains clear and guides everyday actions. At the same time, a work environment is created where people feel included and valued. Learning becomes part of daily work rather than a separate effort.
Speculand (2021) identifies several reasons for strategy failure that reflection can help address:
- Poor communication of the strategy and its execution
- Weak understanding of the strategy and insufficient reinforcement
- Insufficient training and capability development
- Lack of leadership
- Unclear required actions
- Insufficient frequency of review
Summary
In summary, successful strategy execution requires embedding the strategy into everyday work; making it visible, understandable, and continuously reinforced. SharePoint serves as an effective platform for this by enabling consistent communication, accessible learning, and collaborative reflection.
When strategic learning is built on microlearning and reflection, capabilities develop naturally alongside daily work. As a result, the strategy does not remain a separate document but becomes concrete action that guides everyday decisions and behavior across the organization.
