Increased remote working is here to stay. Whether staff will work from home permanently, or just make fewer trips to the office, you need your staff to be set up properly to work remotely. We’ve covered the basics of what you need to work from home, but we wanted to look at how Microsoft 365 can help remote workers get more out of their working day. Here are five benefits of Microsoft 365 for remote work.
1. Updates Whenever You Need Them
In the past, businesses would have a local copy of Microsoft Office installed on their computer, giving employees access to familiar applications such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook. If Microsoft issues a new version of Office, companies would have to decide whether the updates were worth it, and in many cases, they would stick to what they already had.
With Microsoft 365 as a subscription service, businesses pay for monthly licenses, where users get access to the latest version of the Office suite, which is regularly updated with the latest security features.
2. Multiple Devices
Microsoft 365 business licenses can be installed on all of your devices, whether they’re company-owned or your own personal device. The most common of these is installing Outlook on your mobile, perfect for a quick check of emails before the start of work. Choose the apps you would find most useful on different devices.
At ACUTEC we’re huge fans of Microsoft Teams. And with our staff working in different locations, communication has never been more important. Having Teams on other devices lets us be more sociable, and we can benefit from some of the more fun features the application has to offer.
3. Simplified Device Management
Employees having work applications and documents needs to be managed. Fortunately, Microsoft have made it easier than ever, thanks to Intune. Intune is a cloud-based enterprise mobility management tool that helps organisations manage the devices employees use to access company data and the apps they use.
Intune allows users to access company data and applications from almost any device while keeping that data safe at the same time. Organisations can then have company-owned mobile devices, offer BYOD policies or provide limited-use shared devices to certain workers.
4. Say Goodbye to Unwanted On-Premise IT
Cloud computing has got rid of the need for a lot of on-premise IT. Storing documents in the cloud will help costs of servers. This works in two ways – you won’t need to buy expensive servers or pay to maintain them, getting rid of the need to keep them cool, and lowering the amount of electricity your office uses.
If more of your staff are working remotely, and will continue to so in the future, opting for SharePoint or OneDrive is much more practical. Neither requires a VPN to your office, so saving files couldn’t be easier!
5. Benefit from Scalability
Microsoft 365 is scalable, so you only need to pay for what you’re using. If your company is growing, and you’ve used up all of your Microsoft 365 licenses, simply buy more as and when you need to. And they don’t all need to be the same. If there are 20 people in your company, you don’t need to have 20 Business Premium licenses, if they’re not needed. The nature of someone’s job might mean they only need email and cloud storage, and can get by with the web versions of Word, Excel & PowerPoint.
The flexibility of Microsoft 365 makes it perfect for remote working. If you’d like to find out which is best for your business, check out our comparison of Microsoft 365 licenses.
