If your company isn’t already using Microsoft Teams, the chances are, it is on your list of new software to review, and possibly invest in.
Especially as businesses are continuing to keep many of their employees working from home, at least part of the time.
A recent study from the IT professional network, Spiceworks, has found that Teams is already the second most popular business chat app (behind Skype for Business), after launching only two years ago. It also reported that 41% of IT professionals expect their employer to start using the collaboration tool by the end of 2020.
More than half of IT professionals reportedly felt that collaborative chat apps are critical to their organisation’s success.
But what makes Microsoft Teams better than good old email?
We’ve outlined the top benefits:
Chats Are Just The Beginning
You can use Teams for instant chat between your colleagues when sending yet another email would be overkill, but it’s so much more than that. In Teams you can access, share, and edit Word docs, PowerPoint, and Excel files, in real time.
No more sending out different versions through email with no-one knowing which is the most up to date one to work on.
You can add comments and to-dos in the document, chatting with your colleagues to discuss what to do with it, right there and then.
Clean Up Your Inbox
By moving your conversations, files, and all-round collaboration away from Outlook, you’ll be surprised at how tidy and organised your inbox will look.
With Microsoft Teams, you can say goodbye to email after email, reply all after reply all, and instead enjoy more structure – with dedicated channels relating to the projects which are important to you.
You’ll have a handy general channel for all things related to your company, but you can also set up individual channels for whatever you like, inviting specific people rather than everyone. This keeps the conversation on topic, and avoids unnecessary distractions.
Seamless Integration With Office 365
If you’re already enjoying the benefits of Office 365, Microsoft Teams naturally integrates with all the familiar applications you’re already using; Word, Excel, Outlook, SharePoint, OneNote etc.
You can also access all of these applications in one location, rather than having to open them up separately, which clogs up your desktop and can cause confusion!
It’s Truly Anytime, Anywhere, On Any Device
Working from home? No problem. Out of the country? No problem. No matter where you are, or what device you’re using, you can access Teams via the handy app on Android, Windows, and iOS. With its comprehensive web interface, you can collaborate on the go, day and night, using instant chat, voice conversations, and even video calling.
The Heart Of Teamwork
As well as the ability for private 1-2-1 chats, with project-focused channels, you can engage the right people instantly with threaded chats through group conversations.
With group threads, you can increase productivity and increase collaboration.
All without the need to book a meeting, source a room, and find a time that suits everyone – only for everyone to then forget what was said in the meeting anyway.
You can refer back to these group conversations at any time, whenever you need to. There’s no need to worry about losing personality and culture on Teams either; with emojis, stickers, GIFs and custom memes, your employees can still be themselves and have fun whilst getting the job done.
Safe And Secure, Just Like You’d Expect
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, Microsoft Teams provides the advanced security and compliance capabilities that all Office 365 customers expect.
Teams enforces team-wide and organisation-wide two-factor authentication, single sign-on through Active Directory, and encryption of data in transit, and at rest.
Teams will also support key compliance standards, including EU Model Clauses, ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA and more. It’s served out of a hyperscale global network of data centres, automatically provisioned within Office 365 and managed centrally, just as any other Office 365 service.
So in a nutshell, you can rest assured that your data is in safe hands.
Easy to deploy, simple to use, and with fantastic audio and video quality, it’s fair to say that once you start using Microsoft Teams, you’ll probably wonder how you ever coped without it.
