For many organisations, this pace removed the opportunity for a disciplined and detailed evaluation. Decisions were made in haste, and many adopted the latest collaboration tools to meet the current needs at the time, ignoring potential future problems.
Months down the track, many are starting to reassess their initial decisions. This is driven by security concerns, a lack of cohesion with existing apps, sub-par functionality, an inability to effectively scale, or simply to cut costs.
However, what many organisations do not realise is that they already had access to collaboration tools that are integrated and scalable, offering additional functionality to support a remote workforce and the transition back into the office.
In this economy, every cent saved is critical for the bottom line. From an application consolidation perspective, if your organisation is paying for a Microsoft 365 subscription (Office 365 Business Essentials, Business Premium and Enterprise E1, E3 and E5 plans), you also have access to Microsoft Teams.
So, if you’re also paying for another vendor’s video conferencing platform – such as Zoom – then you’re paying for another product that does the same job. This is surprisingly common!
Microsoft Teams is a powerful, integrated platform for enterprise collaboration, and it’s about to get a whole lot better following some recent announcements. Let’s take a look at what this means for users, and why it’s worth ditching that costly video collaboration platform to take advantage of your existing Teams subscription.
It’s clear that Microsoft has been working at breakneck speed to enhance the Teams platform, addressing user feedback to make sure it’s built to support collaboration both at home and in the office.
Microsoft has enhanced their collaboration platform with new functionality, including:
And it doesn’t stop there! In the coming months, Microsoft Teams is also rolling out some exciting new capabilities across meetings, calling, chat, integrations, management and security – helping organisations connect and collaborate more effectively. The standouts include:
As the next evolution of Teams’ custom background effects, this mode transports your team to a variety of virtual settings to create a more engaging and collaborative meeting experience.
This is all about creating a more dynamic content viewing experience, with presenters able to customise the way their content is displayed to meeting participants.
To eliminate the scramble to take notes, a recap containing the recording, transcript, chat and shared files will automatically be shared with participants post-meeting.
With role-based recommendations powered by MyAnalytics and Workplace Analytics.
Get quick access to your organisation’s intranet via the app bar in Teams, providing multi-level navigation to your community and resources.
And that’s just to name a few! Check out the full list of new capabilities coming to Microsoft Teams here.
For virtual events, many organisations have defaulted to using Zoom to support large scale webinars. But there’s no need, with webinar functionality built into Teams via Live Events.
It’s tried and tested too – with Data#3 choosing Teams to host its JuiceIT Digital event earlier this year due to its capabilities, providing a greater user and guest experience. There’s some exciting new features coming to this area too, but we’ll dive into this in a future series.
As we return to the office, organisations need to ensure meeting spaces can support safe distancing between employees and excellent hygiene standards. There are a couple of upcoming Teams features that will be critical here:
As Microsoft’s largest Australian partner, Data#3 is the perfect fit to help your organisation take advantage of everything your Microsoft 365 subscription has to offer, providing comprehensive strategies for Teams as well as the broader Microsoft ecosystem.
Contact a Data#3 Modern Workplace Specialist to set up a Teams Workshop for your organisation.