Microsoft Office 365 is one of the most innovative products to come into the personal computing space in a long time. Sure, it’s not exactly revolutionary - the popular office productivity suite has existed since 1990 - but the fact that Microsoft, a major player in cloud computing, moved one of its biggest products along with other peripheral products to the cloud on a subscription-based price model is huge.
Microsoft’s cloud focus was a strategy that factored in their bottom line and its ability to remain competitive. But, it’s the Office 365 commercial users who are really benefiting. Users see the value in paying predictable subscription fees while enjoying the various apps and services that Microsoft has to offer. Plus they have the tools to improve team collaboration, communication and enhance productivity seamlessly.
In this post, we’ll examine a few major ways Office 365 has made collaboration and productivity more efficient.
Back in the old days, communicating with colleagues via Microsoft Office meant that you had to use Outlook to send an email or IM via Skype (if it was 2011 or later), or perhaps you made the most out of the track changes/comments feature in Word. And while these are all definitely forms of communication, they aren’t necessarily the most efficient when you’ve got a team of people working on a project (admit it - there is nothing that gets old quicker than an email chain using the “reply all” feature). Enter, Office 365 and both Microsoft Teams and Yammer.
Microsoft Teams is, essentially, a premium group chat and file sharing experience. You can be IMing with someone while video chatting with someone else and reviewing a document at the same time. Additionally, your team can work together on documents and stay in the loop on everything that’s happening within a project or task, creating a truly collaborative and productive experience - especially for teams that aren’t all working in the same building - or even on the same continent.
Yammer is also a social collaboration tool, but it’s built more around the premise of project management and provides users with the ability to interact much in the same way they would on social networks. Originally created for the genealogy website Geni.com and released into the wild when they realized just how efficient it was making their operations, Yammer was purchased by Microsoft and integrated into the Office 365 suite.
SharePoint: Either you love it, or you hate it. Either way, it’s become a staple of many Windows-based organizations and is considered a gold standard file sharing and content management system. Within SharePoint, users can store files, assign tasks, and manage projects without missing a beat.
Of course, throughout the entire Office 365 system, it’s also possible to share files via various platforms - Yammer, Teams, Skype, and OneDrive all provide the ability to share files with collaborators, meaning that whichever method your team chooses to communicate they can most likely share files across it as well. And, if all that fails, there’s always good old-fashioned email via Outlook.
Finally, one of the biggest collaboration and productivity boosters of Office 365 is that it’s available via the cloud. That’s right - anywhere, anytime access to the entire Microsoft Office Suite and the peripheral applications. Now your team can chat and share files in the conference room or on the train. Teammates that are traveling for work don’t need to worry about being left out of the loop, and a snow day doesn’t need to throw a wrench into a tight deadline.
There are so many ways that Office 365 can benefit your organization. To learn more, set up a Free IT Assessment today and we'll chat in depth with you about how it can help your business in particular!