Why Microsoft Office 365 Could Be A Game-Changer For Your Small Business

It’s imperative for small businesses to be constantly improving their workplace efficiency and connectivity. According to a recent report, office efficiency is paramount especially now that we are living in a “hybrid” work environment. Work Trend Index states that close to 60 percent of workers attest to feeling less connected to their work team now that remote work has become all the rage due to COVID-19.

In order to create a workplace environment that still thrives on-campus and off, you need to bring everything together via digital high-tech. Software Consulting Services can be a major first step in providing software consulting, software implementation, custom development, cloud hosting, IT managed services, and a lot more.

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But consulting services aside, here are some interesting workplace facts now that we’re entering into a post-pandemic world.

• Nearly 50 percent of the workforce plans on moving to another location now that remote work is here to stay.
• Job listings on LinkedIn have risen 5X since the pandemic struck in early 2020.
• The time spent in weekly meetings has doubled for work teams since the pandemic began.
• Business-related emails have increased by six billion from February 2020 to February 2021.
• Microsoft 365 has been a boon to both onsite and remote workers.

That said, here are some of the specific ways Microsoft 365 have helped boost both productivity and connectivity to small (and large) businesses during the pandemic and post-pandemic environment.

Cloud Document Management Sharing

Lots of businesses are already utilizing One Drive and SharePoint for management of their business documents. This is said to improve searchability, free business data from file sharing, while offering tools for user access and managing “versioning history.”

Taken on their own, these tools assist in improving knowledge-sharing and overall productivity. But adding Microsoft 365 to the mix takes things a full step or two further. By adding Microsoft 365 to SharePoint Online, the interconnectivity and interface makes document managing inside cloud-based libraries more efficient.

It also offers seamless sharing of documents and information.

Enhanced Mobile Access/Productivity For Anywhere And Anytime

Said to combine a full suite of mobile apps with the power of cloud computing, Microsoft 365 is engineered to make it easier for employees to stay super productive when working remotely and/or traveling. That’s because the software’s apps focus on individual applications such as Excel, Teams, Word, and more. These apps are also free for all mobile devices. Free is always good when it comes to a small business’s bottom line.

However, you might wish to look beyond the standard apps to create a more sophisticated digitally powered workplace. For example. You can engineer an application constructed with PowerApps that’s available for any mobile device. Applications like OneDrive, SharePoint, and planner contains their own apps that work well with each other.

Intelligent Processing Automation

One of the more difficult tasks for small businesses is managing and updating processes. Power Platform and Microsoft 365 are able to give you “out-of-the-box online forms,” along with data storage capabilities and workflow management that can quickly automate your business processes.

By using Dataverse with Microsoft Teams, the processes solutions can serve the entire enterprise by spanning across every department. Plus, Microsoft 365 integrates lots of external tools, such as pulling actions from emails, thereby increasing workflow.

Efficient Communication

In both small and large businesses, communication can cover a wide array of activities, all of which start with a teamwork solution and/or a corporate intranet. Aside from other communications tasks, enterprise intranets afford you the ability to deliver information and services, build your brand via a company website (and social media presence), and provide a central home-base for company employees who wish to lean more about company resources, initiatives, and opportunities for moving up the corporate ladder.

Robust Enterprise Search

It’s typical for workers to spend precious time browsing through folders and file shares to find the information and documents they’ve already created and/or still working on. The process almost always comes with inefficiency and frustration since files tend to get lost along with folders that are poorly labeled and generally disorganized.

Instead of browsing, search functions can prove more effective for finding the content you’re looking for. The search capabilities in Microsoft 365 have improved greatly over time. Small businesses aside, some of the largest organizations in the world are now utilizing this finely tuned and integrated search system for providing a powerful, and more importantly, cost-effective, content search experience.

Improved search capability is said to enrich not only document management, but also, communication, collaboration, and social content which, in the end, improves productivity and greatly lessens effort duplication.

If you are interested in even more business-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.

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