It’s essential to use the right programs to stay on top of business demands. If you’re looking for new ways to boost productivity and efficiency in the workplace, you might want to turn to cloud-based solutions like Office 365.
Office 365 is a suite of collaboration apps that combines Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook, and other apps into a subscription service. According to Microsoft, there are currently more than 135 million commercial users of Office 365 as of the fourth quarter of 2018.
Despite this, many small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are still unaware of what it is, and the benefits it can provide firms. Once SMBs take advantage of its features, however, they are on their way towards fostering better collaboration in the workplace.
Here are the most notable benefits Office 365 can offer your business:
#1. Complete package
Office 365 contains all of the essential productivity applications a firm will need. There’s Word for creating documents, Excel for spreadsheets, and PowerPoint for creating visually appealing presentations. Files can automatically be saved on OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud hosting service. Your employees can easily work together in Teams.
#2. Seamless collaboration
With the rise of mobile technology, it’s important that your employees get to do their work wherever they may be. Office 365 makes it easy by providing access to email, contacts, documents, and calendars on any web browser or device.
For instance, one of your employees is away on a business trip. Even without a PC, they can access their files on their smartphone or tablet using Office 365. They can even edit documents and presentations, so wherever they are, they can do their work properly.
#3. Better uptime
Since Office 365 hosts your applications and files in the cloud, you won’t have to worry about natural and man-made disasters that can damage your IT infrastructure. All documents and emails will always be safe and can be accessed anytime.
Let’s say that a fire destroyed your office’s computers. A typical business would worry because they have their files saved locally, meaning they’ve been destroyed along with the devices they were stored in. However, Office 365 gives you peace of mind because files and applications are hosted on the internet, so you will still have everything intact even when you decide to start over.
Should there be any issues that come up regarding your Office 365 setup, Microsoft provides 24/7/365 IT admin phone support, geo-redundant data centers, modifiable privacy controls, and robust security. Business owners are guaranteed 99.9% uptime, so the chances of downtime affecting your business are virtually impossible.
#4. Working offline
Even though Office 365 is a cloud-based service, it still enables users to work offline. Except for two tiers, all Office 365 plans include web-based and desktop versions of the software. This can be ideal if there’s downtime and your employees still need to do their work.
This setup disables syncing features, however, so if a document was created offline, the file will stay on the device it was created on. If you need to access the document on another device, the file has to be synced first to OneDrive.
#5. Cost-effective subscription plans
There’s a common misconception among SMBs that a monthly subscription isn’t a practical idea, as this would mean that they’ll have to constantly pay Microsoft to use Office 365. This has resulted in some companies using lifetime licenses.
However, in the long run, a lifetime license is still less cost-effective than subscription models. Though a one-time payment helps you spend less in the long run, a lifetime license is not eligible for version upgrades, and support will eventually be cut off for the specific version installed.
With Office 365’s subscription model, on the other hand, you will continue to receive the latest version along with the newest features and tools. Since your programs are always updated, you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues that can hamper productivity.
Setting up Office 365 in your workplace shouldn’t be a hassle. Here at USWired, we make the process easy by tailoring Office 365 according to your business needs. Don’t put up with the burden of managing a complicated IT environment. Call us today for a free consultation.
