Is your business one of the 20% NOT using Microsoft Office 365?

Are you using one of the cheaper or free alternatives like Google’s G-Suite set of apps because it “promises” a similar range of functionality? What might be “good enough” when your business is a 1-3 person startup, quickly becomes limiting as your business grows and your team needs to collaborate and share files with clients, vendors and partners.

Office 365 has cutting-edge collaboration features like Teams and real-time co-authoring. Your staff can use O365 on up to five devices, making them more productive and able to connect from anywhere at any time.

So whether your staff is 1 or 10+, here are the key features of Office 365 that will excite your workforce to be more productive.

REASON #1: Great For Small Business Owners

Microsoft provides business owners with a stable, consistent pricing structure for their suite of business tools. They’re able to provide their employees with the latest updated software without worrying about additional upgrade charges or excessive licensing fees.

The easy per-user pricing structure allows businesses to scale up or down whenever they have changes in their staffing levels. And say goodbye to investing in expensive servers thanks to Office 365’s cloud storage option.

REASON #2: Easy Collaboration From Anywhere

All users have access to a common platform when collaborating on projects. By enabling cloud synchronization, documents can be created on one device and shared with other contributors to allow for easy collaboration in a secure cloud environment.

Microsoft’s introduction of Teams in 2016 brought collaboration to a new level. Teams is a conversation thread for groups of people, similar to Slack, but where Slack lacks in an integrated experience, Teams provides easy access your business apps, such as PowerPoint, Word and Excel. With Teams, live collaboration seamlessly occurs with teammates across the room or in the next hemisphere.

REASON #3: Ideal For A Mobile Workforce

Office 365 can be used on- or offline. This is important because if the internet goes down and your team is using G-Suite, you are down. With Office 365, your team can stay productive by just using the apps offline and syncing when an internet connection becomes available.

The Office 365 license permits use of up to five devices per user. This allows your employees to use it on their mobile device, laptop or tablet. For businesses that have a workforce that is mobile or remote-based, the options of being able to work from anywhere at any time provides increased productivity.

REASON #4: More Extensive Features Than G-Suite

Office 365 and G-Suite can appear superficially similar at first glance. Let’s do a deeper dive into important differences between the two productivity suites.

1. More Plan Flexibility

G-Suite makes only three different plan options available: basic, business, or enterprise. You’re out of luck if none of them meet your current business needs. There’s no way to massage any of the plans into a more suitable format.

In contrast, Microsoft currently offers three plans for small businesses and four plans for enterprises. They also offer separate plans for educational institutions, government agencies in the U.S. and various non-profit organizations. If none of them meet your company needs, Microsoft allows you to pick and choose features to create your own custom plan.

2. Better Cloud Storage

All Office 365 business users gain access to 1TB of cloud storage. Compare that to basic business accounts with G-Suite which only receive 30GB of storage and must upgrade to a higher tier for additional storage space.

3. Meets Compliance Regulations for HIPAA, PCI and FERPA

Office 365 cloud storage can be used to back up user and workstation data. All data uploaded to Microsoft cloud servers is protected by encryption and meets HIPAA, PCI, and FERPA regulations. Additionally, Microsoft offers two-factor authentication to prevent Office 365 and Outlook email accounts from being accessed if a password is compromised and an unfamiliar device attempts to log into an account.

4. Better Positioned for Growth

G-Suite tools may work when with a startup workforce. But, as you grow, you need tools capable of handling that expansion. Office applications are used by 80% of business users, making it easy to collaborate with business partners and vendors without compatibility issues.

Let Simpleworks Aid Your Transition

Simpleworks has migrated thousands of users to Office 365. We create a simple and seamless experience for your business, so you have nothing to worry about. We can sync your Office 365 applications within 1-2 days depending on the size of your email database.

Trust your migration to an experienced and certified Microsoft partner. Contact Simpleworks if you are considering a move to Microsoft Office 365. Reach out to us online or by phone at 719-476-0444.