When many business professionals hear “Office 365”, the basics immediately jump to mind. “Oh, you mean my email?” or “Isn’t that the one with Word?” are common responses. While word processing and email functionality are major parts of Office 365, the power of the toolkit that Microsoft has created often goes untapped. When users take the time to fully understand what they are capable of with these apps, entire work routines can be revolutionized by the power of technology.
Team Communication
Since their inception in the late 80s, emails have grown to become a staple of modern business communication. From birthday announcements to meeting reminders, emails have been and remain integral in the way that teams across industries communicate. Outlook in Office 365 is one of the most capable email platforms ever designed, marrying elements from other Microsoft programs to become a one-stop-shop for company updates, birthday reminders, post-meeting recaps, and so much more. However, email isn’t the only way to communicate in Office 365.
Teams is Microsoft’s answer to modern group communication platforms like Slack and Discord. With teams, users have the ability not only to chat, but to make voice and video calls to a single person or a group while simultaneously sharing files, showing their screen, or giving a presentation. Email still remains an incredibly important component in business communication, which is why Microsoft designed Teams with Outlook in mind. Features like sharing an email from Outlook in a Teams group message, using Outlook to schedule a Teams Meeting, and a Task menu showing what you’ve been assigned both via email and in Teams have all either launched or are scheduled to launch in the coming months. These integrations revolutionize the basic connectivity that Outlook provides and bakes in so much more to create a well-rounded communication experience.
Collaboration
According to McKinsey Analytics, 97 percent of employees and executives believe lack of alignment within a team impacts the outcome of a project. While a “people” element plays a large role in any company’s ability to maintain perspective, Office 365 provides a solid foundation that gives teams the tools they need to work together in a way that is not only engaging for them, but effective for getting work done.
Real-time co-authoring and in-program chat introduce functionality found in many modern chat applications to programs like Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, allowing teams to simultaneously discuss and edit their work from anywhere in the world. Make interdepartmental projects a breeze by only sharing a project with certain members of the team. With the power of SharePoint and OneDrive, the entire team can be granted access to the same files via the cloud – no more forgotten laptops or thumb drives to hold a project back. By providing your team with the data they need, team alignment and collaboration isn’t limited by technology, but rather amplified by it.
Versatility
20 years ago, work was expected to be done at the office. Since 2005, the number of employees working from home has grown by more than 173 percent. According to Quartz, roughly 8 million people worked entirely from home in 2017. It goes without saying that technology has made this possible, allowing for fluid team and client communication and collaboration from anywhere in the world.
The features we’ve already covered in Teams and Outlook make instantaneous communication a breeze, whether an employee is logged into their desktop, at a coffee shop on their laptop, or in the go with a phone or tablet. Microsoft’s extensive application library covers Windows 10 and MacOS as well as iOS and Android devices. By being available on billions of devices around the world, Microsoft has allowed its users to work when, where, and how they need to. As research is performed and new features are developed, Office 365 has the potential to push work-from-home opportunities away from being an exception and towards becoming the norm.
Organization
Office organization, a struggle for millions of employees across generations. As technology became more integrated into the workplace, cluttered desk drawers evolved into cluttered computer desktops. Manilla folders filled with crumpled paperwork became folder icons filled with misnamed files. Cloud technology has made cluttered desks and desktops alike obsolete, introducing tools that cut the clutter in all areas of work.
OneDrive and SharePoint have created an organization system that conforms to the way that you work. Creating subfiles and organizing their contents based on a variety of parameters allows you to find what you need when you need it without sorting through a virtual pile of outdated .docx files. Office 365 doesn’t only organize your files, it organizes your entire life. With cross-app calendar integration, your day, week, and month are planned as the plans themselves are made. Time spent tracking down an email conversation is minimized with notifications that make sure you know when you receive a message in a group or personal chat. These are just a small selection of the many organization features Office 365 introduces to reduce the amount of time spent on logistics and increase the amount of time spent on checking boxes off of your to-do list.
Security
Built in protection against spam, malware, viruses, phishing attempts, and malicious links highlights an ever-growing list of ways Microsoft is making sure their human and AI-powered protection is constantly improving to provide a high level of safety and security while you’re getting work done. Admins are also given a granular authorization system to ensure that the right people have the right data at the right time, minimizing the risk of a potential leak while maximizing access for internal teams. All the while, Microsoft is monitoring their security efforts to maintain 25 key compliance certifications for industry-specific, regional, and international cybersecurity governing bodies.
As impressive as the features already included in the Office 365 suite may be, the team behind this software line is constantly taking user feedback into consideration to shape the future of their work. With each passing month, the capabilities of Office 365 continue to push companies to new heights and provide a larger ROI for early adoption of new technologies.
At SeedSpark, we have a passion for guiding our partners through digital transformations that modernize their business processes to optimize workflows and boost productivity.
