What can Microsoft 365 do for your business?

Microsoft 365 is the new name for Office 365, bringing together Microsoft’s essential business applications into one subscription. What Microsoft 365 can offer is neatly split into two types of product: applications and services. Here’s what applications and services are on offer with Microsoft 365.

Applications

With a Microsoft 365 subscription, businesses gain access to Microsoft’s Office suite of applications. The Office suite is the most widely used group of productivity applications and M365 allows you to subscribe to these vital tools instead of paying for a one-time purchase.

Microsoft 365 bills per user whereas a one-time licence of Office 2019 is billed per machine. Microsoft 365 allows users to access their full Office suite from multiple devices. This means if your employees work from home or on multiple devices, only one subscription is required.

Here are the Office applications on offer with a subscription to Microsoft 365:

Word

Word is the most popular word processor ever created. If you’re looking to write documents likes notes, letters, reports or flyers, Word is the best way to get text on a page. A web app is also available for on-the-move work alongside a mobile app.

Excel

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program. Any business working with data like financials, budgets, timesheets is using Excel to collate, analyse and present their data. It features great calculation, pivot table and graphing tools. Excel is also available on the web and on mobile through the office app.

PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is a slideshow presentation program. PowerPoint is used to create digital slides to accompany a presentation like sales pitches, lessons, meetings and so on. PowerPoint is also available both as a web app and on mobile.

Outlook

Outlook is a desktop email management client, allowing you to log in to your email and manage multiple inboxes and calendars. Outlook’s desktop application is one of the best on the market, allowing for Microsoft Word levels of formatting control, great calendar features and an intuitive UI. Outlook is available as a mobile app for iOS & Android, allowing you to sync your email to your phone and work on the go. Outlook’s integration with OneDrive lets you send email attachments that exceed the usual 25Mb file size limit by hosting the file on OneDrive cloud storage.

OneNote

Microsoft OneNote is a free-form note-taking application to gather notes, screenshots, drawings and audio commentaries. OneNote is also available as a web and mobile app.

Publisher

Publisher is a desktop publishing program with a lot more emphasis on page layout and design than Word. Publisher used to design marketing materials like leaflets and flyers – perfect for smaller businesses without dedicated graphic designers. Publisher is available for Windows only.

Services

The services on offer with Microsoft 365 bring the cloud revolution to your business, with Microsoft placing a great emphasis on remote working when designing these tools.

Exchange

Microsoft Exchange is Microsoft’s email and calendaring server, providing your employees with their own dedicated email and calendar accounts. Exchange email accounts can be accessed online through Outlook Web Access on Office.com and also through any email client of your choice, including the desktop Outlook application.

Exchange’s ability to sync seamlessly across multiple devices makes it one of the best email servers on offer right now. Exchange’s tight integration with Office apps both on the web and desktop apps, allowing for easy collaboration within your organisation.

OneDrive

Previously known as SkyDrive, OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud storage service. A Microsoft 365 subscription gives each user 1TB of space for file storage and sharing. OneDrive integrates well with the Office applications and makes collaborative working very easy.

SharePoint

SharePoint is a web-based collaboration application to allow for the access and automation of information and workflows. SharePoint allows managers to create ‘sites’ on your organisation’s intranet to connect your team to the content and apps you rely on every day.

Teams

The Office 365 suite used to include Skype for Business, an instant messaging and video chat program. This has since been replaced by Teams, with Microsoft hoping Teams can transition more into a general communications platform. With greater integration with SharePoint and shared OneNote notebooks, Teams is the perfect one-stop-shop for remote collaboration.

Which Microsoft 365 Plan do I need?

If your business doesn’t tend to need heavy desktop applications and your employees prefer working in a browser, the web apps included in Microsoft 365 Business Basic is more than enough. These smaller businesses can still use Word, PowerPoint and Excel from their web browser or through their mobile devices.

For larger businesses or those who use productivity applications heavily, Microsoft 365 Business Standard may be a more suitable plan. This plan includes the desktop applications for Office and includes more ‘specialist’ programs like Access and Publisher. Businesses that compile lots of documents and write letters may appreciate the flexibility of desktop applications. Business Standard will also unlock the desktop Outlook application. If receiving and sending emails is a large part of your business, desktop Outlook’s versatility justifies the more premium plan.

For medium to large enterprises, Microsoft Business Premium unlocks the full range of security features Microsoft 365 has to offer. Network admins looking to create a robust network for their organisation will appreciate the Intune mobile device management service and the Azure platform for cloud computing and single sign-ons (SSOs).

If you’re not sure what plan your organisation needs or what apps would be useful given your business’s working habits, get in touch with us today by taking our Free IT Audit, and we will get back to you to dices your businesses needs!