As U.S. companies are slated to spend nearly $4 trillion on tech, it’s vital for everyone to spend wisely.
If you don’t know what to install on your machines at your small business, Office 365 for Business is the best tool out there right now.
Expect everything you love from Microsoft and more with tool integrating your company better than ever.
Here are four things to know about Office 365 in 2019.
1. Great Online Services Are Here
If you’re updating to the latest version of Office 365, get ready for an exciting mix of apply and online services available. Depending on the level of your subscription, you’ll get a varied and powerful package of tools. There are a few that are common to every enterprise or business plan.
You’ll get Exchange Online, Microsoft’s own native business email application. You’ll start with a 50 GB mailbox that’s accessible through the mobile app, for desktops, and even on Mac devices. With powerful malware protection and spam filters, you’ll only have to do minimal training on keeping your inboxes safe.
Since everyone and their grandmother is moving data to the cloud, you won’t be left in the dust with Office 365 for businesses. Every account starts with a 1 TB cloud drive via OneDrive. Since climate change, security breaches, and any kind of disaster can attack your data on site, cloud storage ensures you have a backup safely offsite.
No matter what industry you work in, you know how valuable communication is, especially the ability to screen share, video chat, and conference internationally. With Skype for Business, you get HD video, a robust IM tool, and the ability to break off into teams. If you’re looking for something that works like Slack but integrates into your entire system, look no further than Skype for Business.
If you buy a Premium plan, you’ll get lots of great tools to help invoicing, CRM, and your day to day operations. Expect great service updates to continue beyond 2019.
2. The Best Desktop Apps
Beyond these tools, you’ll find that every plan with Office 365 offers some of the tools you love the most from Microsoft.
Get the entire classic productivity suite when you buy a subscription to Office 365. You’ll get Word, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, and PowerPoint. If you’re using a Windows PC, you’ll also get Access and Publisher. When updates are pushed out for these apps, you get first access to download and install them so that you’re always at the bleeding edge of cybersecurity.
You can buy “per-user” licenses allowing that these apps get installed on five of your devices at the same time. Directly from the subscription portal, you can manage your installations without having to remember product keys or installation information. Rather than the old system of perpetual licenses allowing for one installation at a time, this is a much more robust way to getting access to the best tools.
You’ll find the web-based versions of these apps to offer robust interaction and the ability to work, share, and edit files from your OneDrive. They’ll open in your browser without any extra software installation necessary.
To compete with Google’s competitive edge with Google Drive and its various productivity apps, you can get these tools on your iOS or Android device. You’ll get the chance to view, edit, or create documents from scratch, allowing you to do work on the go, wherever you have a wireless connection.
3. Scale Your Investment
If you’re running a small to medium-sized business, you know that the line items on your budget can steadily chip away at your profit margins. Between invoices, subscriptions, maintenance, and payroll, every dollar matters, so you need to be sure you’re using tools that fit your business size.
Thankfully, three of the main Office 365 subscriptions support companies that need 300 or fewer users.
Office 365 Business Essentials charge you just $5 per user per month, giving you the online services that you need to keep your business running. If you want to manage email and document storage and already own all the desktop apps that you need, this is a perfect scale for you.
If you need a little bit more, Office 365 Business charges you slightly more, drops a few of the online services, but leaves you with all of the apps and OneDrive. If you need these tools mainly for productivity, this is the perfect set up for a business like yours. If you’re already happy managing your email and other communication tools, this plan gives you what you need.
If you need a little more from your subscription, look at the Business Premium package. You’ll get all of the desktop apps and all of the online services with as much as you’d get from each package separately.
This is by far the best deal for most business operations. If you’re worried about the changes coming to connected Microsoft accounts, get help here.
4. Security Is Key
With the latest release of Office 365, you’ll be sure to have everything you need to be at the cutting edge of cybersecurity. With the average data breach running as high as $4 million dollars, there’s not a company on the planet ready to absorb that kind of hit. You’ll lose out on your customer reputation, via lawsuits, and from customers jumping ship.
All of the tools listed above have cybersecurity baked into them. Before you sign in, you can encrypt your machine’s data to ensure you have an extra layer of security.
Azure now allows you to enable multi-factor authentication, giving you even more security than ever before. Your employees will pair their mobile devices to their account, and when they attempt to sign in, they’ll get a code to enter after their main password.
Office 365 for Business Gives You the Competitive Edge
Office 365 for Business is a fantastic tool, assuring that you have everything you need in the coming years for getting ahead of the competition. For anyone seeking out a tool that can scale from 1 employee up to 100, Office 365 is what you’re looking for.
Check out our guide on how technology is increasing efficiency for businesses around the globe.
