What SharePoint and Teams are, and why they replace the shared drive

Part 1 of a beginner-friendly series. A short guide for anyone who has heard about it but isn’t quite sure what it’s for.

If you’ve ever hunted for a file called Contract_FINAL_v3_revision_REALLY_FINAL.docx on a shared drive — and known there’s another “really final” version sitting in a colleague’s e-mail — you’re reading the right article.

The shared drive: an electronic filing cabinet that lets you down

A shared drive is simple: a few folders, maybe some permissions where someone bothered to set them up. It works fine while the company is small. Then it turns into a dumping ground:

• Versions: Mark edits it, then Petra, then Mark again. Which version is the right one?
• Conflicts: “File is in use by another user.” Petra waits until Mark goes to lunch.
• Finding things: Is it in Projects\2024 or Clients\Acme? Nobody knows.
• Outside the office: VPN, slow, sometimes simply doesn’t work.
• Permissions: They can be set, but managing them across dozens of folders is brutal work. In practice, it usually ends up in “everyone sees everything” mode just to keep the peace.
• When someone leaves, their folder stays behind and nobody knows what’s in it.

A shared drive is essentially just an electronic filing cabinet. Passive storage. When somebody mislabels something, an entire project can disappear into it.

SharePoint: smarter storage

SharePoint looks similar — you still store files in “sites” (think folders, but at the level of a team, department or project). But there’s more:

• Versioning is automatic. Mark and Petra can edit at the same time and SharePoint handles it. History: who, when, what changed. Rolling back to any version is one click.
• Search actually works. Type “Acme contract 2024” and it finds it across all sites, even buried in nested folders.
• No VPN. You work from a browser, mobile, or Word. From anywhere.
• Permissions make sense. Sensitive HR data is visible only to HR. An external supplier sees only the folder you invited them to.

Teams: where you talk about the files

Teams is the application for communication — chat, calls, screen sharing. The trick is that each conversation is connected to specific files in SharePoint.

Example: HR has a Teams channel called “Recruiting 2026”. They chat there, plan meetings, share CVs. Those CVs are actually stored in the HR team’s SharePoint site — Teams just opens them in its own window. No downloading, no switching apps.

The main difference: storage vs. work in context

A shared drive is about storing files. SharePoint and Teams are about working in context — file, discussion, meetings and tasks aren’t three separate things in three apps; they’re one place with everything together.

If you imagine a company as an organism, the shared drive is the filing cabinet in the corner of the office. SharePoint and Teams are the nervous system — connecting people, information and processes.

Where to start

If you already have Microsoft 365, you already have SharePoint and Teams included. Nothing extra to buy. You just need to:

1. Create your first Team for one specific project or department.
2. Move files from the shared drive into it — the ones that belong to that team.
3. Start chatting there instead of using e-mail.

After a few weeks you’ll find that finding a file takes a second, not five minutes. And nobody talks about the shared drive any more.

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This was the first part of the SharePoint for Everyone series. Next up we’ll cover concrete scenarios — Teams for project work, organising documents without folder pyramids, managing permissions without unnecessary complexity, and when an intranet is worth the effort.