The Benefits of Moving Your Small Business to Microsoft 365 and Teams

Learn how Cox Business can help you prepare for the future with Cloud Solutions, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams.

Workflow interruptions may cost precious minutes of productivity. While it’s impossible to end all intrusions, smart solutions promote effective time management by:

• Showing real-time presence data for all staff
  
• Unifying workflows and tools in one dashboard
  
• Giving users control over home screen functions and actions
  
• Sharing calendars with set work hours
  
• Providing an admin dashboard to manage permissions and data

Whether you’re scheduling a meeting or assigning a task, any action is just a few clicks away. Plus, Microsoft 365 shares status data, so teams see who’s available, out of office, busy, on a call or in a meeting. If you need uninterrupted time, select Do Not Disturb. Your teams can still message you, but it temporarily halts banner notifications.

Microsoft 365 can help alleviate budget woes by providing your businesses with extra savings:

Reduce or eliminate unnecessary software-as-a-service solutions and replace them with one app that includes six tools and nine services.

Save money on travel—without sacrificing meetings or events—using Team Meetings to host online gatherings for up to 250 people.

Give your staff the option to work from virtually anywhere.

With a full or partial remote workforce, reduce office square footage without sacrificing workflows or customer experiences.

Pay one affordable monthly payment per user, with no hidden fees, for a full suite of communication and collaboration tools.

With flexible pay-as-you-go solutions and the ability to mix and match license types, easily add or reduce users during peak seasons or downtime.

Whether your employees are working in the office or virtually, help your team stay informed with software that syncs in real-time and mobile apps. Easily access project details, the latest document versions and conversations and more.

Microsoft 365 gives you and your teams the flexibility to work well from anywhere. And with its 99.9% uptime guarantee, you get reliable access to business-critical tools and data.

Engaged and connected teams drive growth. Small business owners who leverage digital tools are:

• Two times as profitable.
  
• Three times more likely to experience revenue growth.
  
• Five times more likely to reach new international customers.
  
• Three times more likely to experience customer growth.

Digital tools empower staff to accomplish tasks, leading to a 22% increase in remote employee productivity, according to Microsoft.

Tools like, Microsoft’s MyAnalytics dashboard, gives staff the means to improve their work-life by delivering personal insights and AI-powered recommendations on focus, wellbeing, network, and collaboration. With one dashboard, dedicated team channels and robust support, your employees can focus on what’s necessary to get the job done.

Access to data drives better and faster decisions. Microsoft 365 supplies administrative and team-level reporting capabilities, providing teams with unified insights. Use the data to see teams’ productivity or engagement levels, identify security issues or save money by removing inactive users.

Microsoft offers more than 600 integrations so that you can add your favorite apps right to your dashboard. Unify your processes by integrating with:

• Mailchimp
  
• Salesforce
  
• Trello for Teams
  
• Constant Contact
  
• Velocity for Teams
  
• Slack

Eliminate the need to use various project management communication and collaboration tools by adopting Microsoft 365. Along with OneDrive cloud storage, workers keep project-specific conversations, tasks, and content in one central location. Businesses can easily collaborate with employees or stakeholders in real-time, from virtually anywhere, and on any device. Simply jump into a Word or Excel document to:

• Work simultaneously with others to edit or discuss document changes.
  
• Chat via comments and use the @mention tool to get a co-worker’s attention.
  
• Quickly designate project responsibilities by checking the Assign Task box when writing a comment.

Need to pull in a client or external stakeholder for review? Invite them to interact in documents without adding extra users to your account. Plus, following up is easy with deadlines on shared calendars and automatic emails to teams about assigned or completed tasks.

With the ongoing market and environmental disruptions, staying connected to teams and customers is vital. Small businesses that embrace agility and flexibility build resilience, allowing for seamless transitions during turmoil. Give your company a competitive edge with a productivity cloud that puts the right tools and data at your fingertips.

With your essential documents on OneDrive, everyone can do their job using any internet-connected device. Employees can stay on track with projects, deliver personalized customer experiences, and connect with teams regardless of external disturbances.

Creating a meaningful and inclusive remote workplace culture can be tough. Fortunately, Microsoft’s all-in-one system lets you personalize digital experiences and monitor activities. Use engagement tools like polls or surveys to interact with staff and gather feedback. Or enhance your virtual environment by:

• Setting up a Teams happy hour or coffee break channel
  
• Using a Microsoft Teams bot for internal tech support
  
• Adding a crisis communication app to keep staff updated

Finding and retaining great employees in the digital age isn’t easy. However, shifting to a virtual workforce is an excellent way to boost staff retention rates.

Microsoft 365 helps you deliver excellent employee experiences right from the beginning. The New Employee Onboarding (NEO) hub provides tons of resources to design a custom onboarding plan that welcomes new hires then sets them up to succeed. With a people-first approach and supportive technologies, remote teams thrive.

For many small companies using cloud solutions and completing a digital transformation takes many years. However, enterprise-grade features are now readily available and easy to deploy. With Microsoft 365, you can sign up and get started immediately. The software is intuitive with a minimal learning curve, so most of your staff won’t have trouble using the services, but you can easily create a learner’s hub using Microsoft’s resources such as:

• Extensive video tutorials and guides on its website and YouTube
  
• Self-guided support channels and knowledge bases
  
• Step-by-step set up guides
  
• Free downloadable Microsoft Adoption workbook

Or simply sign up for FastTrack, included free with eligible subscriptions. The services help you deploy your Microsoft 365 solution, including data migration, to get teams up and running quickly.

Boost operational efficiency and profits by putting your teams and projects in one spot. Microsoft says complete adoption of Microsoft 365 results in workers having “66% higher confidence in their organization’s ability to adapt and thrive amidst uncertainty.” Microsoft 365 is a low-cost solution for remote work, teleconferencing, communication, cloud computing and file management. Protect your company’s future without breaking the bank by signing up for Microsoft 365.