If someone had tried to predict business trends for the future in 2019, they most likely would be completely wrong. Now that we have lived through the 2020 pandemic-induced shut down, we have learned quite a bit. As businesses sent employees home, they scrambled to figure out how to supply their workers with the tools they need while they worked from home.
Teams was the answer a lot of businesses turned to. With nearly 92% of workers wanting to continue working remotely in some capacity, businesses need to offer their employees an efficient solution to work away from the office. But why use Microsoft Teams?
What is Microsoft Teams?
Teams is a great tool not only for remote workers but also for in-office and hybrid workers as well. They all need a great tool for collaboration and communication, and Teams has a lot of the features needed to keep a business running smoothly no matter where the workers are located.
Teams is Microsoft’s newest addition to the Microsoft 365 suite. With a Microsoft 365 license, you can add Microsoft Teams to your setup easily. Or, alternatively, you can license Teams on its own. Teams is a chat-based platform that helps employees collaborate in real-time. So, the question remains. Why use Microsoft Teams?
Why Use Microsoft Teams?
Teams adds a lot of value to the communication efforts within a company. With a user-friendly interface, customization, and collaboration, the question of why use Teams quickly turns into why NOT use Microsoft Teams. Below, we take a closer look at what Teams does in these three areas and why a company would benefit from the use of Microsoft Teams.
User-friendly interface
Microsoft Teams is easy to maneuver as a user and as an account manager. The dashboard has easy-to-toggle side tabs with simple drop-down menus to access organization features within the dashboard.
As an independent worker, the user, your employee, has access to past interactions and conversations. These conversations can be organized easily through different channels and threads. This means that workers who are on committees or teams can also organize and personalize the way that their platform is presented to them.
Organization allows your employees to spend less time searching through several tabs. This organization is multiplied when documents, emails, and messages are all accessible through Microsoft Teams.
Customization
As part of the Microsoft suite, you can customize your dashboard with apps from the Microsoft App store. This includes apps for document signing as well as project management and automations. If you are used to using certain apps, you don’t have to give them up when you begin using Microsoft Teams. As you and your employees personalize your solution, it becomes more efficient and effective.
Collaboration
Collaboration amongst coworkers is one of the most important aspects of an efficient and effective business. Microsoft Teams allows workers to work together in a simple way. Through the Teams interface, workers can share documents, chat instantaneously, have voice conversations and even video conferences with each other.
As you share documents through Teams, you can grant access to coworkers for editing purposes. This encourages even more collaboration, as workers can simultaneously edit and revise the same document.
Microsoft even has OneDrive as part of its services. OneDrive is a cloud-based storage that allows everyone at the company to store and access their documents from any device that has access to the internet.
What Advantages Does Integration Bring?
So why would anyone use anything other than Microsoft Teams? It seems to have everything you need in order to have a fully functioning communications solution. As stated earlier, Teams is great for employee collaboration. However, did you know that you can get even more functionality out of your solution if you integrate a cloud-based phone system with your Microsoft Teams?
Teams does allow for internal and external voice calls from the dashboard. While this is exactly what some businesses need to keep communications open, a cloud-based phone system from a dedicated provider can add features and functions that Microsoft Teams just does not support.
Advanced Communications is here to help you get the best of both worlds with integration of your cloud-based phone system with Teams. Our phone systems are packed full of features not included in Teams. The added functionality can help you take your business to the next level of efficiency and effectiveness. Contact us today to learn more about our cloud-based phone system functions and how well they pair with Microsoft Teams.
