Recently announced by Microsoft, Office 365 now has 50 million active users and has continued to dominate the productivity industry with Office 365 as their highest earning product. Growing faster than ever, Microsoft has consistently focused their effort on outpacing any competitor to introduce new upgrades as often as possible to Office 365.
But now that more and more small and medium sized businesses are joining up with Office 365 (especially due to the better on-boarding methods) new challenges have arisen.
- Dealing with a new productivity software on legacy systems
- Cultural changes due to the new operational workflows
- Initial productivity stagnation due to learning a new system
But after these initial struggles are dealt with, Office 365 gives smaller companies the same opportunity to maximize productivity as fortune 500 companies; without the massive investment into technical specialists.
If you’re considering office 365 adoption, we would recommend you take the following tips you maximize your productivity.
- Begin your Office 365 transformation from the top
We recommend leading by example. Higher level employees should both promote the new platform and interact with everyone using the platform when they have the chance. If entry level and mid-level employees do not see you using it, they likely will think it is just an unnecessary change and will not adapt. Showing all employees the new opportunities that are open with Office 365 is a good way to get people excited about the change.
- Leverage opportunities Office 365 provides
The massive public adoption of Office 365 in 2016 gives companies easy access to cloud opportunities; leading to the ability to be connected anywhere, anytime. And now that OneDrive and SharePoint are integrated into Office 365, that ability is amplified as files and documents can be shared with employees and clients more easily than ever. Companies need to let employees know that they can leverage these abilities so that Office 365 isn’t under-utilized by employees. And new features are rolled out all the time, meaning you need to keep employees up to date on how to use them.
- Educate and Train
Managing teams cannot realistically expect any of their employees to use Office 365 to its potential without giving them the knowledge on how to do so. Having a wealth of small training videos that explain all the abilities and actions that can be taken within Office 365 is a wise investment of time.
- Keep constant stock of your security
Microsoft has been a pioneer and set the standard for security in the cloud in 2016. And with over a dozen different cloud applications hosted on Office 365, it is well needed. Since Office 365 operates off of Azure Active Directory, Microsoft makes sure your information is safe and sound when being shared from employee to employee. However, security is always at risk when sharing sensitive data beyond the company’s direct control.
- Utilizing the built-in Skype app
Coming in as a default application with Office 365, Skype for business does more than simple videoconferencing. You can share screens, IM, send files, and use it as a platform for large multi-company meetings with clients. And to add to mobility, users can call in on their phones easily to a conference call while editing a document all over their mobile phone.
Image credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Office_365_logo.png
