For 12 years, we have been recommending, and rely on, the Microsoft 365 suite of products and services. Here’s why we think every business should be using it…
The modern business world is defined by its integration with technology. When you think about your day-to-day work, how many of your tasks and routines do not start with switching on a device, or logging into an app or system? Most likely, very few of them.
The simple fact is that technology allows us to do what we need to do to keep up with rapid trends of customers, who themselves have been empowered by technology. For us, the biggest testament to how business has changed in just a few short years is a solution we use every single day: Microsoft 365.
Here at TechQuarters, we have been Microsoft Partners since the beginning. Our current status as a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Modern Work was earned because of our excellent track record with supporting and consulting clients on how they use the Microsoft Modern Workplace – a concept for the present and future of business productivity, for those organisations leveraging the Microsoft Cloud (and specifically, Microsoft 365).
The Modern Microsoft 365
As a fully remote, digitally transformed organisation, we can’t imagine working without Microsoft 365. The modern iteration of the solution is the culmination over three decades of innovation. We’d be surprised if you hadn’t heard of Microsoft Office – the suite of productivity apps that launched on the 1st October 1990. For two decades, Microsoft Office established itself as the de facto productivity solution for PC users around the world.
Then, in 2010, the next stage of its life began, when Microsoft launched Office 365. This is where we came in, as the inspiration for TechQuarters was the prospect of leveraging innovative new cloud services to support other businesses. Since then, we’ve seen all sorts of changes to the fabric of business – perhaps the biggest of all, the COVID-19 pandemic (at the time, we were grateful to have had a fully established M365 infrastructure to support the transition into remote working).
The Modern Microsoft 365 is at the heart of Microsoft’s B2B business model. They have retired the tenured Office brand, and ushered in the latest era. With an ever-growing list of new capabilities, a new hub for all the products and services in the plan, and ongoing efforts to integrate it into the Windows 11 user experience for hybrid and remote workers, Microsoft 365 continues to shape the way we do business.
Why We Recommend Microsoft 365
Truly, the best way to see all the benefits of Microsoft 365 is simply to try it out for yourself – this is something we recommend to most of our customers. But we thought we would put together a list of our favourite things about Microsoft 365 – why we think that it is the most effective enterprise and business solution out there…
Support a Fully Distributed Workforce
Here at TechQuarters, we have a global footprint – meaning our workforce spans several countries around the world. This not only enables us to provide an efficient, round-the-clock service to our customers, but it also goes a long way to demonstrating the flexibility that Microsoft 365 gives organisations.
Microsoft Teams, together with Outlook and Exchange Server, means that Microsoft 365 forms a unified communication suite. As M365 is software-as-a-service, the onboarding process is very streamlined, and users can hand off work from their PC to their phone (or vice versa), whilst maintaining high standards for security with solutions like unified endpoint management (UEM), multi-factor authentication, and identity and access management.
All of these features (and plenty more to boot) mean that Microsoft 365 can help businesses efficiently manage a distributed workforce.
Unrestricted Data & Intelligence Sharing Across the Organisation
One of the things that made Microsoft 365 unique compared to many of its competitors in the early days, was level of integration that was available between all the products and services included in it. It is certainly true that, because so many Microsoft products are viewed as the standard for business software, the suite had an advantage from the get go. However, Microsoft have invested a lot of time and effort into creating a software ecosystem where data and intelligence flows freely throughout the suite.
This feature has many benefits. For example, it makes daily workflows for office workers – such as attaching files to emails, or automatically backing up work to SharePoint or OneDrive, very straightforward. But this is just the jumping off point. Microsoft’s cloud computing platform – Azure – features a range of cutting edge AI and machine learning tools that can be used to drill into the rich data that Microsoft 365 generates. This means that the data and intelligence sharing capabilities of M365 aren’t just a nice-to-have UX, they can actually help businesses uncover hugely valuable insights into the way their organisation ticks.
Centralise Productivity & Collaboration
Over the last few years, we’ve found ourself relying more and more on Microsoft Teams. It was essential for us (and for many others out there) during periods of social restriction due to the COVID-19 pandemic – and as a remote company, it makes sense that we would need in the long term. With the future of business looking like it will be increasingly hybrid by nature, businesses would do well to consider the benefits of Microsoft Teams.
At its core, Teams is a hub for productivity, communication, and collaboration. The team and channel interface is perfect for organising work and conversations, along with all the assets and resources that go with them. The integrations you have with products like OneDrive and SharePoint, Word, PowerPoint and Excel, means that the average user can carry out most of their work directly within Teams. With the rest of the products and services in M365 round Teams, it is plain to see how the suite centralises work in a highly effective way.
