If your business is currently using Skype for Business, you are probably already aware that there are some significant changes on the way.
Microsoft will retire Skype for Business on July 31, 2021, so Office 365 for business users have until that time to switch over to Microsoft Teams before losing support for Skype for Business. Switching to Microsoft Teams is both necessary and beneficial for your business, as Teams offers several additional features that are not available on Skype for Business.
In fact, Microsoft Teams may only have been released in 2017, but this productivity suite is already hugely popular. In November 2019, Microsoft reported that Teams already had 20 million active daily users. From increased productivity to improved communication and collaboration, there is a lot of potential within Microsoft Teams that simply couldn’t be reached with Skype.
Take a look at how making the switch from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams can benefit your business:
One of the most significant benefits of switching from Skype to Teams is that it offers a much more robust platform for communicating, including greater functionality and a more user-friendly experience. There are several ways that you can utilize Teams within your business:
The Chat function on Teams enables workers to message each other either one-on-one or as a group. You can create new chat channels for different projects, topics, or departments and add users as needed. Chat allows users to include gifs, stickers, and add emojis within their messages.
Need to turn a group chat into a broader discussion? No problem—with just the touch of a button your group chat becomes a video conference, bringing together your team regardless of how many members there are or where they are located.
You can manage your conference calls with greater ease using Microsoft Teams. Users can dial in on their phone or use the app to connect to the call. Direct Routing allows your business to select your own telecommunications operator to use within Teams calls.
Teams collaboration features make teamwork easy and allow you to work in real-time. The Collaborate feature enables your team to edit and share PowerPoint, Word, or Excel documents and for those changes to be visible immediately. These changes are also tracked and logged to be viewed at any time.
Using Teams also helps your business to benefit from enhanced email features, such as the following:
In Office 365, users can recall emails that have been sent in Outlook. Whether you forgot to add an attachment, missed an essential piece of information, or sent the email to the wrong person, you can easily recall unopened emails.
Group email accounts are also available, which enables everyone in the team to stay in the communication loop and ensures that everyone is receiving the same information.
Outlook enables you to create email polls, which is a useful tool when you are trying to quickly gather opinions and information to gain a consensus within the team. These make gathering quick data through email easier than ever.
Teams is a hub offering all the collaboration and communication tools that you need on just one screen. As Teams is integrated with Office 365, you can seamlessly switch between functions, to provide a streamlined communication and collaboration experience for your team. This helps to eliminate gaps in communication and streamlines teamwork to make collaborating on projects hassle-free.
Teams also provides the trusted Office suite experience, with the added benefit of being cloud-based. However, Office 365 with Teams capabilities go far beyond merely offering a cloud version of Office. Real-time co-working becomes possible from any device, anywhere, thanks to the combination of OneDrive and SharePoint. Files can be shared with ease and automatically synced to simplify collaboration.
Teams forms part of the Microsoft ecosystem, but you can also integrate other third-party apps and tools to create a customized workspace that perfectly fits the needs of your business.
If you need additional support maximizing the use of Teams or switching from Skype for Business, a Managed IT Services company can consult you on how best to implement Teams for your unique workplace. This added support is highly beneficial for businesses who have unique needs would like custom support for implementing Microsoft Teams.
As is evident in its myriad features, Microsoft Office Teams goes beyond the capabilities of Skype for Business to offer increased productivity, better communication, and an enhanced collaboration experience. Making the switch is not only wise, since support for Skype for Business is ending soon, but also a great way to add a competitive edge to your business processes and make your workplace more efficient.