How can you make Office 365 tools work for your business?

Changing your business’ technology can be a daunting prospect. The risks in changing your current technology solution may be concerning as time, money, and energy are at stake.

In this blog we discuss why efficient technology solutions, collaboration and communication are key to the success of your business and how to make Office 365 tools work for you.

The cloud along with mobile, and social technology solutions can support your business to collaborate much more efficiently. Cloud computing – accessing IT services via the internet provides businesses with the ability to use the cloud for some things and keep others on existing systms.

The popularity of Cloud computing has meant that the price of collaboration and productivity tools for many businesses has dropped considerably.

How can the new Office 365 help you achieve your business goals? 

Traditionally, Microsoft Office has offered software such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which you purchased on a disc for a few hundred dollars and installed on your computer.

Office 365 now provides businesses with a cloud-based version which lets you pay a monthly fee instead of having to pay for it upfront.

As with all cloud services, the key benefit for your business is the cost savings, as you essentially rent the infrastructure off someone else rather than buy it outright.

Today, CEO’s are focused on more than just keeping costs under control- they want to know how a new technology can help achieve their business goals.

If you’re managing a Small to Medium Business, growth would be a top priority. A cloud-based solution such as Office 365 can facilitate growth and help you scale your business.

The new Office 2016 apps enables users to access trusted business applications across laptops, desktops, smart phones and tablets operating iOS, Android or the Windows operating system all in a secure environment.

Here’s an example of how office 365 can support business growth and goals – your business has a small number of core permanent staff, but you need to hire temporary staff for a specific project or event. The temporary staff need access to email and applications such as Word and Excel to complete their job.

In this scenario most businesses would need to buy year-long licences for Microsoft Exchange even though they are only needed for a matter of weeks. This becomes expensive and time consuming to install on individual devices.

The solution to saving time, increasing efficiency and reducing unnecessary technology costs is to move to Office 365 – it simply goes into the membership portal and adds the number of users needed for the time period required.

Having this flexibility helps you scale your business as you need to, because you’re not limited by physical technology constraints – you can add and remove uses as needed so you only pay for what your business needs at that point in time.

What are the benefits to your business?

For users

With Office 365, your staff can connect and collaborate from wherever they are working and on the device of their choice. All they need is an internet connection and their account login details.

One example is a project management tool called Microsoft Planner. This makes it easy to structure teamwork, as staff can:

• create new plans
• organise, assign and collaborate on tasks
• set due dates
• update statuses
• share files

For CEO

By improving communication and collaboration, Office 365 supports a remote workforce and preserves data while maintaining security and control.

As security threats are a concern for all businesses now more than ever, this makes Office 365 a low risk solution for your business. 

In this digital and mobile era, productivity is necessary for your business to remain competitive. Office 365 provides your staff with the ability to be truly mobile and access documents and content anywhere.

Given the key benefits the new Office provides around the cloud, social, security and technology it is important to consider this solution for your business to remain competitive.

Because Office 365 is managed in the cloud, your IT department will spend less time troubleshooting problems and spend more time enabling productivity.

Download our latest ebook, Why Your Companies IT Strategy is key to Business Success.