We often get asked by clients whether it’s worth moving their business over to Office365 and the answer is commonly a resounding ‘YES’, but we wanted to outline why it is such a business no-brainer to make that switch.
Flexibility and Mobility
First off, Office365 is an attractive package for SME’s for so many reasons. It’s the ability to be used anywhere, anytime and on any device allowing for flexibility for business owners and their staff. With work culture shifting towards working remotely, Office 365 makes this seamless.
Reducing the requirements and onsite expenses of exchange servers with licences, lots of storage, backups, continuity plans, warranties etc. Office365 can not only provide all your email hosting and software but it also provides…
Scalability
SME’s tend to favour this system because it’s easily scalable. There are no up-front big lump sums to pay – we manage the Office365 tenancy entirely for our CETSAT Customers and charge a fluid monthly figure dependant on the number of users and services the customer has licenced for that month. This means the bill is all in one place, no card details are held on Microsoft Servers and the customer doesn’t need to worry about missing Microsoft Renewals or making changes to their tenancy. You can also change your plan from month to month to suit your business operations. Upscale, downscale – it’s up to you.
Constant updates
In the old days, if you wanted the latest version of Microsoft’s suite of Office Apps, you would have to pay for an upgrade and install a new version, and this could get incredibly costly with multiple licenses. Office 365 is offered as a SaaS (Software as a Service), so all the updates you need are included in your subscription. The platform performs updates constantly in the background, meaning you can always have the latest, most up to date, feature rich and secure version of Microsoft’s Applications.
OneDrive, SharePoint and loads of online storage
We have moved countless businesses over to OneDrive and SharePoint and the move just makes sense. OneDrive replaces your home drive and gives each user a massive 1TB of personal storage where they can keep their own files and then SharePoint comes with as much space as you need and replaces your mapped drives for group and team access to files and folders.
Along with Windows 10 and the latest version of MacOS you can now map these storage areas to your machines and only download what you need when you need it, therefore not taking up important space on your machine. OneDrive and SharePoint allow users to work on them from any machine or smart device, anywhere with an internet connection and collaborate with other users by being in the same file at the same time, go back in time and restore previous versions all without needing a server, onsite storage or backups. The dream of a truly mobile workforce is now a reality and is fast becoming common practice.
Each user has 1TB (terabyte) of storage – more than you will ever need when you consider that this equates to 60 million one-page word documents and two million photos!
Link up with LinkedIn
There is a handy LinkedIn integration whereby you can see a ‘People Card’ of those you are connected to on the platform. The cards show what people are working on across your company.
Book me in!
There is a collection of online booking systems at your fingertips which offers 24/7 access for your customers, a confidential email and a calendar invite.
Data Loss
Microsoft use clustered servers and data centres all around the world meaning customers’ data is stored on a more robust system than they could ever afford to provide themselves. This means more uptime, better contingency and a service you can trust. Microsoft offer the ability to recover files and restore previous versions within OneDrive and SharePoint, however their offering can only stretch so far and is not impervious to end user error or malicious intent. There are a multitude of third-party products that can provide a much more robust backup and recovery solution of these files, along with tried and tested solutions like Mimecast to add further protection to the Office365 Email Platform.
Data Alert
For all you fans of data, you will love what Microsoft Power Business Insights has to offer. You’re able to bring your data to life with stunning illustrations with the click of a button. This data can come from multiple sources and devices, all working together to create stunning reports in minutes.
Affordability
With the basic package coming in at less than £10 per month per user for a monthly subscription, you really can’t argue with the cost.
A name you can trust
You want to know that you’re in safe hands when it comes to your IT systems and data. Well, Office365 is backed by Microsoft – one of the most trusted names in technology. That really should be the icing on the cake when it comes to deciding on whether you should make the change over to Office365.
Why you may still not want to switch
With all these positive reasons to make a move, surely there can’t be a reason why you wouldn’t want to make the switch across to Office 365? Well, these three reasons may just put the stops on…
- You may have applications that require a server
- You don’t have sufficient connectivity
- You like the security of having your technology on the premises
If you would like to chat with one of our team to discuss whether Office365 is right for your business, which options work best for you and how we can make the switch as painless as possible, give us a call on 0800 195 3838 or drop an email at chris.kimmins@cetsat.com.
