Cloud Solution Delivery Manager Michael Wilson reviews some of the “best bits” of Microsoft 365 and how to leverage some key benefits.
With so many of us working from home, we’ve relied on technology to keep us connected with colleagues and able to do our jobs. Looking to the future, more than a quarter of UK employees are considering working from home permanently or occasionally when life returns to normal.
Microsoft 365 represents a great way for organisations to empower employees. Many businesses have already turned to Microsoft 365, where the enterprise suite can transform the way businesses work, with best-in-class productivity applications, simple device management, and always-on security. If you’re yet to make the change to Microsoft 365, or feel you aren’t fully realising the benefits, we’ve put together three key aspects of Microsoft 365 you should be aware of.
1. More secure and better compliance
With the increase in cyber threats, cyber security is hugely important for all organisations. In fact, the Cyber security breaches survey 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) found that 32% of businesses and 24% of charities overall recall any breaches or attacks from the last 12 months. This is much higher for medium businesses (59%), large businesses (69%) and high-income charities with £500,000 or more in annual income (56%). Microsoft 365 provides tools that can help organisations improve their cyber security practices, for instance by introducing enhanced user access management. As part of this, it can be configured to mandate the use of multi-factor authentication and can even flag risky users and sign-ins. The systems can also be set up to block access from specific locations and can take a more data-driven approach to managing user access.
To better the understanding of cyber risk, Microsoft 365 creates a security score for the organisation. This way, stakeholders can take stock of security position and ensure risks are minimised over time. Additionally, Microsoft 365 can be used to manage the security of systems through several security and compliance focused dashboards, helping businesses to keep information secure by highlighting which employees have access to what company data.
2. Increasing productivity and improving the user experience through advanced analytics and monitoring
With the rise of remote working, productivity is something many businesses have been taking a closer look at. One of the biggest bugbears of many organisations is IT downtime. As part of implementing Microsoft 365, businesses can configure the software to flag slow booting computers and crashing programs to IT teams, allowing them to proactively fix or replace hardware to ensure a better user experience. This can result in happier employees with better performing devices, reduced downtime, and greater productivity.
Microsoft 365 also includes some of the best productivity apps for businesses, such as Microsoft Teams and OneDrive. But these apps are only useful if they have been configured effectively. Powerful metrics and usage monitoring are built-in to Microsoft 365 so businesses can see how each user is interacting with and using the applications. The platform highlights where tools could be used more effectively and even help them to use the right applications in the best way. Businesses should be looking to use these tools regularly and tweak their implementations to get the most out of Microsoft 365.
3. Save some money on wasted licences
Many enterprises often rely on a myriad of different Microsoft products each of which have their own set of licensing requirements. However, with changing working practices the traditional licensing model isn’t the most cost effective. With software licences being a significant outgoing optimisation is key to ensure money isn’t wasted.
Microsoft 365 gives organisations more options, to ensure that users have what they need, and to remove “shelfware” that they don’t use. Varying packages from Business Basic to Enterprise E5 and everything in between, allows businesses to customise who gets what tools, and to optimise licences accordingly. Taking the time to look closely at who needs access to what applications is hugely important and analytics tools built into Microsoft 365 can be used to simplify this process.
Making the most of Microsoft 365
The good news is that organisations don’t need to go it alone. Daisy’s technical architects help to implement and optimise Microsoft 365 deployments and if you are already using Microsoft 365, our consultancy assessments can make sure you reap all the benefits for better performance and security.
We can also provide a choice of enterprise-class support and management packages to fulfil a range of support level and budget requirements, and with any of these great value-added services, you’ll be a Microsoft 365 power user in no time at all.
Additional services
- When you buy Microsoft 365, remember that Microsoft manages the infrastructure but does not back up your data – we can help with this
- We deliver training for users who are new to the Microsoft 365 product suite, to help them be more productive and collaborate with ease
About Michael Wilson
Michael is a Technical Delivery Manager with more than 20 years’ experience of designing, implementing, and managing enterprise grade, highly available solutions. He leads a team of Professional Service Architects and Solution Engineers, assisting them in the delivery of cutting edge, high performance, future proofed solutions into public or private cloud environments. Michael is passionate about keeping abreast of the latest technology released to market, empowering his team to investigate, produce and develop exciting solutions for our clients.