To deal with the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects, enterprises worldwide hastily established remote working policies last year. Numerous companies choose to make work-from-home an ongoing option for their workers in 2021, continuing this trend. Through a reliable collaboration solution like Microsoft Teams, one of the most efficient methods to maintain a remote environment and guarantee business processes continue is to ensure they are always running. As one of the most well-liked platforms across midmarket and business firms, the Benefits of Microsoft Teams we all have seen in workplace chat, videoconferencing, Teams calling, file sharing and storage, application integration, and more.
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What is Microsoft Teams?
A platform for teamwork that uses chat is called Microsoft Teams. It has functions like safe document sharing, virtual meeting spaces, and more. Working online is a helpful tool for keeping up with business communications. Microsoft Teams provides contemporary solutions for the varied work environment of today. Although it is a crucial component of Office 365 and Microsoft 365, enterprises frequently underutilize this software.
Using shared workspace software like Teams makes it much simpler to communicate online. Hundreds of firms, organizations, schools, colleges, and universities now utilize it, as do nearly all industries. It is especially helpful for teams in big organizations, businesses with a sizable staff base, or teams with many team members.
Key Features:
Microsoft Teams is a platform for collaborative work that uses persistent chat and includes several incredibly practical capabilities for corporate interactions, such as document sharing and online meetings.
Thinking creatively and interacting with one another requires a great team environment. This is significantly simpler to accomplish using shared workspace software, especially if a team is located within a big organization, has many remote employees, or has a sizable team size.
The following elements set Microsoft Teams apart from other communication tools:
- Chat Option – You may instantly communicate with individuals, teams, or groups using the chat function. For a fun touch to talk, you may attach files and utilize emojis, stickers, and GIFs.
- Teams and Channels – Teams are made up of teams of individuals who are collaborating on projects or who share an interest. They may be combined to create a public channel accessible to all users or a private channel with a targeted audience. Typically, a channel develops around a subject, like “Work Party,” or a department. You can work together on papers, organize meetings, and have chats inside a channel.
- SharePoint file storage integration – Teams interface with SharePoint to simplify file sharing and storage. Without leaving Teams, workers may effortlessly collaborate on a variety of documents.
- Video conferencing online-Even individuals who don’t have Teams can participate in high-quality video conferences with those inside and outside your company. With video conferencing, you may also grant desktop access to someone else for immediate technical support and share your computer’s screen.
- Sound conferencing- Even with internet connectivity, this feature enables users to join a meeting while on the go.
- Online meetings- Users may host meetings for up to 10,000 people using Teams. It provides an advanced meeting schedule to help in scheduling.
- Privacy and security- You can safeguard your data, documents, and discussions with administrative tools and security measures integrated into Microsoft Teams.
Why use Microsoft Teams for Your Business?
As the COVID-19 epidemic worsened, Microsoft Teams, introduced in 2017 as a competitor to collaboration pioneer Slack, saw utilization soar to 75 million daily active users. The firm dubbed teams as having seen the fastest business app growth.
When it comes down to it, companies should utilize Microsoft Teams because of how user-friendly it is and how well it can support collaboration among distant workers or across a huge organization. Microsoft Teams may help with projects, productions, and other business-related activities.
The Microsoft Teams client will take the role of the Skype client for companies already utilizing Skype for Business, but all the current features will be preserved.
The Main Benefits of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams’ popularity has grown rapidly over the past year. The demand for collaboration and communication technologies that permitted online meetings and chats drove the expansion. Microsoft Teams offers a lot more than just chat and meetings. When you start creating teams where work gets done, the application’s actual power comes into play.
First and foremost, it’s crucial to realize that successfully using Microsoft Teams as a team requires some work. We are all accustomed to communicating via email, exchanging files as attachments, and producing papers in a linear method. It might be challenging to shift to a collaborative team in Teams when emails are replaced with channel posts, documents are automatically shared, and documents are developed and co-authored simultaneously with collaborators. Everyone in your business needs to understand why this is a better choice.
Here are some of the main Benefits of Microsoft Teams that you should consider for your company if you are a business owner who hasn’t implemented a collaboration platform into your entire IT strategy.
Here are 5 Benefits of Microsoft Teams that demonstrate why it is a superior choice for SMBs regarding communication and collaboration.
1. Improved productivity and communication
The variety of collaboration capabilities available with Microsoft 365 can sometimes be perplexing. Teams boost productivity by consolidating all your collaboration tools into a single application and user interface, including discussions, chats, online meetings, shared files, projects, and more. Several third-party apps interface with Teams in addition to the commonly used Microsoft programs, ensuring that your employees never need to leave Teams to complete their job.
2. Concentrate on the task at hand
Focusing on work-related issues and setting better time priorities is made simpler with Teams. Teams compartmentalize information into channels and place it in context rather than requiring time-consuming scrolling through an inbox containing messages from everyone about everything. Only discussions, gatherings, and documents pertinent to the channel’s subject are included in the channel. Your team members may concentrate their limited time and attention on the channels where they do their task rather than being distracted by incorrect email or trapped attempting to clear up a constantly filling inbox.
3. Objectivity
Keeping everyone informed and ensuring everyone is aware of what is happening is a major difficulty for many companies. With Teams, this is made a whole lot simpler. It’s no longer necessary to stress who to cc in emails or invite to meetings. With Teams, a message is placed in the appropriate channel, the individuals who need to be informed are @-mentioned,, and the post is left open for everyone to see. Transparency is improved by allowing everyone in the channel to “pop-in” to meetings by making them accessible to everyone in the channel.
4. Ease of transition to a digital workplace
The transition to a cloud-based digital workplace has several advantages for the company. Teams is a cloud-based application, so the transition is painless. A major advantage for businesses is having information available on any device and from any location. Certainly not more so than in the mixed workplace of today. Additionally, with the office in the cloud, organizations of any size may benefit from big data processing and artificial intelligence to operate more efficiently.
5. swiftly integrating new team members
Getting individuals integrated quickly and easily is crucial in the modern workplace when employees might be located anywhere in the city, the nation, or the world. No matter where they work, new team members may rapidly catch up and get involved with the teamwork thanks to Teams.
Despite the numerous advantages of Microsoft Teams, changing people’s routines and behaviors might be difficult. The advantages will accrue to both people and the company once they realize the advantages of Teams.
Know How to Access Teams
Teams can be accessed in three different ways.
1. Web browser
Log in by visiting https://teams.microsoft.com. You can utilize the app or the web client moving forward on the screen that welcomes you. Your web browser is just referred to as the “client.”
2. Teams app
Get the Teams app for your Apple, PC, or laptop and install it. The app is more feature-rich than using a web browser and is free.
The Teams web app is the Teams PC application in the screenshot below. As you can see, they are fairly comparable, and parity is surprisingly high.
A few extra capabilities are available with the desktop program the option to hide your backdrop during a Teams conference. Although using Teams through the installed Teams app is recommended, you shouldn’t be afraid to switch to an excellent web client when it’s more practical.
4. Mobile app
For iOS and Android, Teams has a free mobile app. After downloading and installing, you use the official Microsoft Teams app. After modifications you may make for your mobile device, alerts connected to Teams activity are displayed below. Because Teams is known for being a bit noisy, you should alert and notification level.
Consider downloading the mobile versions of PowerPoint, Word, and Excel in addition to the mobile app. You’ll be astonished at how well utilizing a PowerPoint presentation from your phone in Teams meetings works.
Microsoft Teams has emerged as the go-to option for businesses looking for a cloud-based collaborative workspace. Even in the most difficult situations, working groups can come together because of their robust combination of automation, communication, and collaboration technologies.
Conclusion
Microsoft Teams is a user-friendly platform that promotes a collaborative and productive work environment. Its functionality is available to onsite and remote employees or a combination of the two. Download the Microsoft Teams application to get started if you’re interested in the commercial Benefits of Microsoft Teams and in integrating it into your existing business apps.
