Microsoft Teams, What Is It and What Can It Do for You?

In November 2016, Microsoft added a new tool to its list of services in the Office 365 suite. This was designed and implemented to answer the common question of ‘How should we collaborate?’.  Up until that point, users had probably been working a lot of the time in email, maybe using Skype for Business; if they had started looking at documents in the cloud then SharePoint Online, and probably they had also found some of the other services available in Office 365, like Forms and Planner.

But it was disjointed, sometimes you were in the browser for files, whilst using Outlook on the desktop for communications. So, Microsoft introduced Teams to solve the problem of collaborating on information in one place, with the aim of making work better.

Now we see organisations from all over the world looking at this tool and starting to see how it can improve their users’ work. In answer to the question of ‘What Microsoft Teams can do for you?’, there are many great benefits and hidden features to drive everyone to work smarter in a successful organisation.

When implemented with a planned approach, including governance and adoption, these are some of the key benefits we see in the organisations we work with:

• Reduction of email to a minimum – avoid many of those needless emails often used just to share a document or ask a question. Here's why Microsoft Teams is better than email
• Accessibility to all files anywhere, on any device – makes life easier for users, allowing them to access files on mobile devices or from any secure browser
• Makes it easier to call people – this works best within the organisation itself, but calling a person by email address for voice calls can be cheaper and easier for everyone
• Ability to conduct meetings from anywhere with video – avoid unnecessary travel with remote meetings where video can be a powerful tool in a two-way engagement process
• Introduction of a sharing mindset to the work area – there is nothing worse than siloed email conversations which could be shared or instigated in an open-sharing environment

We see many great examples of what Microsoft Teams can do across many different industry areas. From police forces improving scenes of crime reporting through to project-based organisations who can focus in one place for documents and correspondence.

It is a journey, and with the service improving month on month with updates - full Roadmap here, Teams is a tool that will not only improve the organisation now but will be introducing better ways of working for many years to come.

If you want help on your Microsoft Teams journey, then we have many years’ experience with the technical and adoption of all the Microsoft 365 services including Microsoft Teams.