Engagement Scope (What You Get)
Stakeholder interviews, content audit (ROT removal target 30-60%), card-sort IA design, hub topology blueprint, search relevance plan.
Custom theme, header/footer extensions, page templates (Home, News, Department, Person, Resource), responsive design, WCAG 2.2 AA.
Hub sites + associated sites, navigation, content types, search verticals + refiners, Viva Connections dashboard cards, audience targeting.
Legacy SharePoint or non-SP source (Igloo, Jive, Confluence, custom CMS). ShareGate or Migration Manager + Mover. Content remap + bulk upload.
Provisioning, naming, lifecycle (Purview), permissions, sensitivity labels, oversharing remediation (required pre-Copilot), Copilot grounding.
Champion network, training (admin + author + end-user), launch comms, Viva Insights + Page Analytics dashboards, 60-day hypercare.
Engagement Tiers
Discovery + IA design only: fixed-fee 4-week engagement (see Copilot Readiness Assessment for adjacent productized offer).
FAQ
What is SharePoint intranet consulting?
SharePoint intranet consulting is the end-to-end advisory + delivery service that designs, builds, and operates a modern Microsoft 365 intranet on SharePoint Online + Viva Connections. Scope spans information architecture, branding, hub site topology, search configuration, governance model, content lifecycle, Teams integration, and ongoing adoption support. EPC Group has delivered intranet builds since SharePoint 2003 across Fortune 500 healthcare, finance, government, and manufacturing.
What does a modern SharePoint intranet look like in 2026?
A modern SharePoint intranet in 2026 is: (1) hub-based topology (not classic top-down nav), (2) Viva Connections mobile + desktop app for employee experience, (3) Copilot-grounded search across content, (4) personalized landing pages by department/role, (5) news + announcements with audience targeting, (6) Microsoft Teams integration for collaboration, (7) lifecycle policies via Purview, (8) governance + sensitivity labels enforced, (9) accessibility WCAG 2.2 AA, (10) measurable adoption via Viva Insights + Page Analytics.
How long does a SharePoint intranet build take?
Typical timeline: 4-9 months end-to-end. Discovery + IA design: 4-6 weeks. Branding + page templates: 4-6 weeks. Hub site build + migration: 8-16 weeks. Governance + training: 4-6 weeks. Cutover + hypercare: 2-4 weeks. Faster timelines (3-4 months) possible for single-geography, English-only deployments. Slower (9-12 months) for multi-lingual, multi-geography, or regulated industries (HIPAA, FedRAMP).
How much does a SharePoint intranet build cost?
Fortune 500 intranet builds are fixed-fee, scoped to organization size: Small (under 5,000 users), Mid-market (5,000-25,000 users), Large enterprise (25,000+ users). Multi-lingual, multi-geo, or regulated industries add 20-40%. Licensing (M365 E3/E5/E7) is separate. EPC Group offers a fixed-fee discovery phase before full engagement scope.
How does Viva Connections fit into a modern intranet?
Viva Connections is the mobile + desktop app that delivers your SharePoint intranet inside Microsoft Teams. Branded dashboard, news feed, resources, and personalized cards. EPC Group recommends Viva Connections as primary mobile intranet for any organization with frontline workers, hybrid workforce, or under-30 demographic. License: included in Microsoft 365 E3 and above.
What governance model do you recommend?
EPC Group governance framework: (1) Site provisioning policies (auto-classification, owner approval), (2) Naming standards + URL conventions, (3) Content lifecycle (Purview retention labels per content type), (4) Permission model (closed by default, request access), (5) External sharing tier (per-site policy, not tenant-wide), (6) Sensitivity labels on docs (with autolabeling for regulated content), (7) Site review cadence (quarterly owner attestation), (8) Decommission policy (90-day notice + archive).
How do you handle migration from legacy SharePoint or other intranets?
Legacy SharePoint 2013/2016/2019 on-prem: tenant-to-tenant migration via ShareGate Migrate or Microsoft Migration Manager + Mover. Non-SharePoint (Igloo, Jive, Confluence, custom CMS): content extraction + IA remap + bulk upload. We rarely lift-and-shift 1:1 — most engagements include content audit + 30-60% reduction (kill ROT: redundant, outdated, trivial). Migration plan + tooling included in scope.
Do you build Copilot-grounded intranets?
Yes. Microsoft 365 Copilot grounds responses on SharePoint content via Microsoft Graph. EPC Group intranet engagements in 2026 include Copilot-readiness: oversharing remediation (required pre-Copilot per SharePoint Oversharing Audit), sensitivity label cascade, search-relevant content modeling, and Copilot agent design via Copilot Studio for FAQ + HR + IT helpdesk use cases.
What about multilingual + multi-geography intranets?
SharePoint multilingual: per-page translation pairs (English source, translated variants). EPC Group has delivered intranets in 12+ languages. Multi-geo: SharePoint multi-geo tenants partition content storage by region (compliance + latency). Required for GDPR, China data sovereignty, and large geographically distributed enterprises. Adds 20-30% to engagement timeline + cost.
Why EPC Group for SharePoint intranet?
SharePoint consulting (since SharePoint 2003 beta team since 1997). 4 published books including SharePoint inside-out volumes. Hundreds of Fortune 500 intranet deployments. Errin O'Connor was original SharePoint MVP + Beta Team member, coined "SharePoint is the biggest Swiss Army knife in the world" (Infonomics, Jan/Feb 2009). EPC Group is a Microsoft Solutions Partner with all six designations under the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program.
Related
Schedule Your SharePoint Intranet Discovery
SharePoint consulting since 1997. Hundreds of Fortune 500 intranet builds since 2003.
Deep-Dive Guides
Related enterprise references from the EPC Group knowledge base:
Documented and anonymized engagements
Named engagements come first; anonymized summaries follow under the anonymized-engagement rule — the client is not named and every statement is EPC-reported. Documents behind named engagements are in the Evidence Center.
- Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. — SharePoint Server 2019 build and deployment: custom user experience, navigation, web parts, search, enterprise-application integration, quality assurance and training (2021)Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. · 2021 · Contracted — countersigned
- Haskell (The Haskell Company) — myHaskell.com intranet implementation and upgrade on SharePoint Online (2019)Haskell (The Haskell Company) · 2019 · Contracted — countersigned
- Canadian Forces Morale & Welfare Services (CFMWS) — SharePoint consulting support (2014)Canadian Forces Morale & Welfare Services (CFMWS) · 2014 · Contracted
- Stryker Corporation — SharePoint Center of Excellence development (2012)Stryker Corporation · 2012 · Delivered — payment-corroborated (client payment records published)
- Copilot and SharePoint AI Governance: Regional Bank (2024)Anonymized engagement summary · Regional bank · 2024Engagement phase: governance and readiness planning before a Copilot rollout; no rollout is reported
- SharePoint Intranet Permission Automation: Contractor (2024)Anonymized engagement summary · Federal government contractor · 2024
- Two SharePoint Farms to SharePoint Online: Regional BankAnonymized engagement summary · Regional bank · 2024
- SharePoint Health Check, Upgrade and Support: ManufacturerAnonymized engagement summary · Consumer-products manufacturer · 2017–2023
More engagements: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — SharePoint best-practices needs assessment, architecture and governance gap analysis, roadmap for a global SharePoint Center of Excellence across the twelve Reserve Bank districts (2010) · NASA (agency-wide, across the NASA Centers) — Agency SharePoint Phase 1 Initiative: needs assessment, architectural review, governance, and a global SharePoint Center of Excellence for knowledge management, intranet and enterprise content management across the NASA Centers (2009–2010) · National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) — SharePoint records management and Center of Excellence advisory and implementation support (2010) · National Institutes of Health — SharePoint Center of Excellence design (2010) · Northrop Grumman — 'Finance I.R.M. Automation Process' statement of work on SharePoint (2010) · NASA Johnson Space Center — SharePoint Site Provisioning Solution (2009) · PepsiCo, Inc. — MyPepsiCo intranet custom master page and branding initiative (2009) · YMCA (Houston) — Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 implementation (2007) · SharePoint Support and Custom Apps: Professional Services · SharePoint 2010 to 2019 Migration: Regional Bank (2020) · SharePoint Online Document Management: Transportation (2020) · SharePoint 2010 to Online Design: Global Law Firm (2018) · SharePoint 2016 Intranet Redesign: Energy Company (2018) · SharePoint Intranet Redesign: Financial Services · SharePoint Migration: Major Healthcare Network
What this changes for the business
Four outcomes an executive can hold a SharePoint intranet engagement to. Each row states what EPC Group does and what the client measures. No result is claimed here: the measure is the client's own instrument, and the linked record states the engagement's scope, instrument and limitations.
Time to value
What EPC Group does: Gathers requirements and use cases by department, then ships the department and news templates first, so business units publish before the custom integrations land.
What you measure: Working days from kickoff to the first department publishing on the new intranet, and departments live by month.
Documented engagement (time to value): Haskell (The Haskell Company) (2019) · Contracted — countersigned
Reporting consistency
What EPC Group does: Builds custom navigation, templates and a brand master page that propagate across sites, so every business unit's pages look and behave the same.
What you measure: Sites off the standard template, and navigation changes that need a developer.
Documented engagement (reporting consistency): PepsiCo, Inc. (2009) · EPC-executed instrument + work product
Regulatory exposure
What EPC Group does: Designs the hub and site architecture with permissions and ownership by department written down, so news, policies and records each have a named owner.
What you measure: Sites without a named owner, and the time to answer who published a policy page.
Documented engagement (regulatory exposure): Haskell (The Haskell Company) (2019) · Contracted — countersigned
Run cost
What EPC Group does: Integrates the social, calendar, profile and search sources the workforce already uses instead of building parallel ones, behind a central application launch point.
What you measure: Parallel tools retired after launch, and support tickets about finding things.
Documented engagement (run cost): Haskell (The Haskell Company) (2019) · Contracted — countersigned