Get Ready for Flexible Work With Microsoft Teams
MODERN WORK GUIDE FOR MID-SIZE ENTERPRISES
Today’s workforce is more mobile, social, and global, and the devices and digital tools people use to get their work done reflect those changes. Organizations are finding tremendous value in bringing new work styles and people connection points together into cohesive virtual work and digital collaboration solutions.
The way teams collaborate and work is changing quickly: Remote teams and meetings. Flexible work schedules and the bridging of physical and digital workspaces. Multiple devices, communication channels and methods of information sharing.
As workplace environments increasingly shift from traditional office spaces to more flexible settings, employers need to be prepared to pivot their operations to accommodate these new expectations in the workforce.
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed organizations of all sizes and industries to re-evaluate their stance on?remote and hybrid work . The shift to fully remote, then hybrid workplace models over the last 2 years is being cited as one of the most?significant changes in work culture ?since the Industrial Revolution.
Now that the world is gradually adjusting to the post-lockdown era, it is important for enterprises to ensure they are getting the most value from the?technology to enable modern workplaces.
The benefits of these modern work systems are evident in the flexibility and productivity they afford many organizations:
These benefits are driving huge jumps in adoption of remote work technology. For instance, Microsoft Teams recorded over 95 million new users in 2020, and?achieved ?270 million active monthly users as of January 2022.
In order to successfully embrace a flexible work model, these enterprises also need to choose the right technology solutions and ready their workplaces to optimize adoption and value of virtual work.
In this guide, we’ll highlight the key benefits of adopting modern, virtual work solutions and how your organization can take advantage of them.
?In this guide, we'll address the following questions:
Flexible Work Opportunities – and Challenges
Organizations want to bridge physical and digital workspaces so they can expand the options to work anywhere, anytime, and better serve customers.
Readying your organization for flexible, remote work scenarios enables it to take advantage of strategic opportunities to accelerate innovation, transform operating models, and expand talent bases.
Organizations large and small, across all geographies and industries are ramping up their ability to offer flexible, virtual work for a number of reasons driven by the promise of positive business outcomes:
According to a 2019?Economic Impact of Microsoft Teams by Forrester Research ,?businesses that implemented Microsoft Teams?were able to realized significant financial returns as a results of time savings and productivity gains:
Virtual communications and collaboration come with the potential for related cost reductions such as travel and telephony while providing scalability and information security.
And from the employee point of view, there are many advantages:
However, with these opportunities come potential challenges that leaders should prepare for:
Disconnected teams
All of us feel less connected to the people around us than we used to. This leads to individual voices being underrepresented, and team performance suffering from communication barriers and a lack of motivation driven by team connection. Without this cohesive connection, employees lose out because of a reduced sense of purpose and connection to their organization’s mission.
Lowered personal job satisfaction
With increased remote work, people’s professional and personal networks have gotten smaller and tighter, which reduces the cross-pollination of ideas and can lead to groupthink. There are limited opportunities for relaxed, serendipitous interactions that expand our thinking and influences.
Increased job resignation
It’s well known that employees are leaving and changing jobs in unprecedented numbers. At the same time, remote working options open up global talent pools that were previously out of reach.
Digital exhaustion
With flexible work also comes increased reliance on computers, tablets, and smartphones for work.?Spending countless hours in front of a computer screen with limited in-person interaction can have real effects on personal well-being and organizational effectiveness. It is best to recognize the risks and compensate building in some downtime to disconnect.
Overcome Flexible Work Challenges with Microsoft Teams
Most leaders realize the opportunities of readying their organization for the future of work, yet many still struggle to capture the full benefits.
Digital transformation enables businesses to move faster and operate more efficiently, creating tremendous opportunities for IT and business leaders. However, the drivers to better compete and serve markets has also introduced more complexity. It’s more difficult than ever for organizations to keep up with the rapidly evolving landscape of technology options.
Because of these challenges, many businesses miss out on their unique opportunity to shift to remote or hybrid work.
Virtual work platforms allow work groups ranging from small project teams to entire business units to connect with each other and their customers anywhere, on any device via chat or audio and video calls and meetings, sharing and collaborating on documents and workflows securely in real-time.
These virtual work solutions can help your organization move forward in four key ways:
Based on what we hear from clients, we’ve compiled some of the biggest reasons you should consider taking advantage of virtual work solutions.
We’ll start with an overview of the one we know best: Microsoft Teams.
Overview of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams ?is a communication and collaboration platform that combines video conferencing, chat, files storage, and integration with many other apps and services provide by Microsoft, such as the Office 365 apps, Dynamics 365, Azure Cloud and Power Platform.
Teams integrates meetings, messaging, and calling services—plus the familiarity and power of Office apps—into a single, secure hub. It serves as a new ‘power app’ bringing together chat, meetings, calling, file collaboration, and apps to power virtual communication and collaboration across locations, time zones, and devices.
Plus+ clients using Microsoft Teams especially appreciate the ability to integrate Office 365 apps, for information sharing, calls and chats.?You can store the chats and documents shared before, during, and after the meetings for future reference and accountability purposes. In addition, Microsoft Teams comes with free cloud storage making shared files available across all devices, so the problem of how to store data is solved.
You can further extend the value of Microsoft Teams with integrations to more than 700 apps available in the Teams App Store. For example, DevOps teams use apps like Jira Cloud and GitHub to build, test and release software directly in Teams. HR and Finance teams use market leading apps like Workday and Adobe Sign to streamline common workflows in Teams. And customer service and support teams use ServiceNow to respond to and manage support requests in Teams.
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Top Reasons to Use Microsoft Teams
More than just an online meeting tool, Microsoft Teams helps organizations to ensure the business fully embraces the new ways of work that come with remote and hybrid approaches.
The top reasons we see with clients and trends wanting to get more out of their virtual team solutions center around communication, collaboration, productivity and security.?
Seamless Communication
Consistent and clear communication among internal and external teams is essential to maintain productivity and boost employee satisfaction and engagement.
Microsoft Teams provides seamless communication solutions to communicate through chats, meetings, and even voice or video calls.
For example, you can easily move a conversation between desktop and mobile chat without losing a beat, and access an archive of each conversation and related files shared.
Teams offers an intuitive user interface for new user to get up-to-speed quickly. So, most organizations can either augment, and even replace most, if not all, of their current communication and collaboration solutions.
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Expand Collaboration
There are many positive results of having effective collaboration:
Microsoft Teams empowers and accelerates teamwork and collaboration through a variety of features that create an inclusive common space in which people – inside and outside of your organization - can share ideas in real time and work more efficiently.
One particular feature that we enjoy at Plus+ is the?Whiteboard digital canvas app ,?which integrates with Microsoft Teams. We use Whiteboard internally and with clients to facilitate virtual brainstorming and information gathering sessions. We can collaborate on a shared digital canvas, before, during, and after meeting, and our work is automatically saved for future reference.
Another feature we recommend is?Teams Rooms , a conferencing feature that brings remote users into the room and in-person users into a virtual gallery. It uses both video and spatial audio to give remote attendees a seat at the table, so everyone can sit face to face whether they are present in person or virtually. This helps to bring everyone into the conversation, not just those in the conference room.
Teams has deeply integrated Office 365 apps to ease collaborative work, both in synchronous and asynchronous workflows. This?integration ?lets your workers move seamlessly into Office apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
Teams also ensures you can collaborate safely with external parties as well—customers, partners, and vendors—without compromising security or compliance requirements.
Microsoft Teams Integration with Dynamics 365
One of our favorite examples of integration offered is the connectivity with?Dynamics 365 , a portfolio of intelligent business applications including CRM and field services, that empowers operational excellence and more engaging customer experiences.
The Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 integration allows you to speed up the flow of work, enabling anyone in an organization to view and collaborate on Dynamics 365 records, from within the flow of work with Teams. Teams can be integrated with Dynamics 365 for Sales and Marketing, Customer Service, Field Service, and Project Service Automation.
With the Microsoft Teams + Dynamics 365 integration, bring together people, processes, and insights.
With the Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 integration you can:
Microsoft Team + Dynamics Client Success Story
Plus+ Helped This Manufacturer Use Microsoft 365 and Teams to Enhance Collaboration Securely Across Business Units
Boost Productivity
Modern workplace systems such as Microsoft Teams can lead to productivity gains across many areas of your organization, from the back-office to the frontlines and field services.
According to the?Economic Impact of Microsoft Teams by Forrester Research , businesses that implemented Teams were able to notably improve productivity by eliminating wasteful time spent scheduling meetings, writing emails, etc., and spend on more important business-related activities.
Here are some of the specific gains reported:
The estimated?NPV?for a typical organization was?$27.1 million, based on PV benefits of $30.3 million over three years, vs. PV costs of $3.2 million, resulting in an?ROI of 832%.
Reduce Technology and Overhead Costs
Another potential benefit is reduced costs related to tech and overhead. In the Forrester survey, companies spent less on their hardware and software solutions for communication by switching to Microsoft Teams.
Over a three-year period, companies saved more than $648k by reducing or eliminating the need for web conferencing, long-distance, mobile phone, and on-premises telephony solutions costs by switching to Teams.
Secure Information with Confidence
As employees move off-premises and access company networks from their personal devices, remote and hybrid workforces pose unique security challenges.
As with any cloud application with connectivity across a potentially wide-ranging attack footprint,?cybersecurity ?is also a top priority, especially in today’s environment of increasing vulnerabilities to security threats and breaches.
Tightening security within apps, as well as networks , is crucial because hackers are going after apps more than ever. Application environments are attractive targets because of the increasing number of vulnerabilities left behind by legacy IT.
The good news is, Microsoft Teams?includes best-in-class app security ?that today’s enterprises demand. Teams comes with enterprise-grade security integrated with the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center and Azure Active Directory. Microsoft
Teams also employs security best practices and procedures such as service-level security through defense-in-depth, customer controls within the service, security hardening, and operational best practices. Security features includes team-wide and organization-wide two-factor authentication, single sign-on through Active Directory, and encryption of data features, among others.
Also, there is an?Advanced Threat Protection ?(ATP) feature available for Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and other applications that integrate with Teams. In addition to ATP, Microsoft Teams has a Safe Attachment feature designed to enhance your security by checking and detecting malicious attachments.
Gain confidence in knowing documents, files, and other sensitive information that you share with your team on Teams will be kept private and protected, allowing you to work with confidence.
How Plus+ Helps You Get Ready for Flexible Work
Plus+ Consulting has helped client across several industries move beyond the challenges facing them on the path to modernizing the business, tech infrastructure and workplace. Here are some of the ways in which we can help you.?
Remote and Hybrid Work Readiness Assessment
Switching to new methods and technology takes time and energy. A lack of employee training and education about these new steps could be a major barrier to adoption.
For instance, we commonly see implementations go awry because solutions aren’t properly designed for their intended use and user context. This leads to?‘work arounds’ and shadow IT solutions ?that may help users cope in the near term; but lead to tech creep and wasteful spend in the long term.?
Strategy and Planning
At Plus+, we always start with a clear understanding of each client’s current goals, desired use cases, and essentially what ‘success’ looks like for them. Part of this means inquiring about past attempts so we can help to derive lessons learned and prevent future roadblocks. We then move into a discussion of features, security, people and policy compliance considerations.
During these assessment and design stages, we also recommend that clients find their internal champions and early adopters. Bringing on these influential advocates helps to kick start adoption, which is where many clients also fail to realize promised benefits.
Our enterprise app implementation experts ‘dig in’ with your teams to explore, design, architect, migrate, deploy, and support solutions that optimally connect your business and employees.?
'Art of the Possible' Workshops to Drive Adoption
Smooth design and implementation are always important. But without post-launch adoption, organizations are leaving lots of opportunity on the cutting room floor.
We also help clients achieve a fast, non-disruptive adoption cycle that ideally creates excitement around the new solution and drives cultural change. Robust user adoption comes from implementing your solution in a way that matches user needs and expectations.
To do this, we recommend that organizations dedicate time and resources to the following, in one of our 'Art of the Possible' and design workshops:
By adopting Microsoft Teams successfully, you will be delivering a great user experience, while also increasing business value.
The Future of Work is Happening Now. Are You Ready?
Companies that stay on-premise are missing out on capabilities to enable remote hybrid work and spur innovation through improved teamwork and communication. Leading organizations are re-envisioning what it means to work and gaining the benefits of cloud-enabled solutions.
Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft 365 suite enables everyone at work to share information in real time, allowing for easier and more efficient collaboration. Access information and communicate from anywhere, at any time, from any device.
Plus+ helps you get the most value from these solutions by providing services including readiness assessment, strategy and design, implementation, custom application development, and post-launch services to boost adoption and business value.
As a Microsoft Gold Partner, we have over 20 years of experience helping enterprise businesses across several industries migrate to a modern workplace using the power of the Microsoft 365 platform. We’ll help you bring your people, data, and communications together with the Microsoft 365 suite to enable next-level collaboration with best-in-class security.
Speak with one of our modern work solution advisors ?to get started or to accelerate your journey to the future of work.
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