If your people are struggling or wasting time performing repetitive daily tasks in Office 365, you might be interested in Microsoft’s new automation tool – Microsoft Flow. It allows you to automate and integrate business processes and common tasks across Office 365 cloud products like Exchange Online, SharePoint and OneDrive. So, let’s gear up and find out how we can go with the flow.

What is Microsoft Flow automation?

Flow is a new cloud service provided by Microsoft and, whilst still in technical preview, it’s now available for Office 365 users.

Essentially, the service enables you to create workflows which are fully integrated with the Office 365 suite, Dynamics CRM, PowerApps and now a number of external providers such as Twitter. It’s the same concept as IFTTT (If this then this) but applied to the Microsoft environment.

Flows can be triggered based on conditions or scheduled to run on a regular basis. There are already many templates to choose from, which you are free to customise. Or you can build your own from scratch. And, if you want advice from your peers, Flow has a strong community following.

Five ways Microsoft Flow can help your business

Well, here are a few real world examples.

1. Automatically store email attachments in a SharePoint library

This is handy for when you’re on the road and collaborating on a project and you want to send a file back for the team to work on. This flow provides a quick and simple way to share a document with the rest of your team. It could also be used to store CVs or job descriptions as part of an internal job submission process.

2. Automatically translate emails

If you sometimes receive emails in a foreign language, you can have them translated automatically and delivered straight to your inbox

3. Engage with your customers

Microsoft Flow can notify appropriate employees when a visitor posts on your Facebook page or responds to a tweet. Take this a step further, and you can add this information to a SharePoint task list for follow up, or create a lead in Dynamics CRM.

4. Get notified when a file is added or updated to a SharePoint or OneDrive library

This is useful if you want to make sure you always have the latest document to hand – such as a pricelist or specification sheet.

5. Track activity on Twitter

Set your Flow so you receive notification when a certain keyword or hashtag has been tweeted, or store them for future analysis in an Excel file within Office 365.

Microsoft Flow for Apple IoS

Microsoft has also recently released Flow for IOS. This enables the management and tracking of your automated workflows, anytime and anywhere. Flow can also provide push notifications enabling alerts in real time. For example, you can get a notification on your phone when a high priority email is received from your manager, or from an important customer without having to check your inbox.

Do less, achieve more

If you want to get the most out of your Office 365 investment, we can help. We’re a direct, gold Microsoft cloud solutions provider (CSP) partner so we have the highest level of trust from Microsoft.

I confess that my 15 years with SharePoint have been something of a love-hate relationship.

But now, fresh from July’s Microsoft World Partner Conference in Toronto, I am pleased to share that my love and enthusiasm for SharePoint is reinvigorated. I now see an exciting future for SharePoint and me.

The future of SharePoint: accessible, intelligent, personal

Let’s go back a bit to May’s “The Future of SharePoint” event in San Francisco, where Microsoft unveiled its cloud-first, mobile-first vision and SharePoint roadmap.

The premise behind it is this: in a cloud-first, mobile-first world, employees work on corporate applications and access data from on-premises and cloud-based systems from anywhere using every type of device from laptops to BYO devices.

To put SharePoint at the heart of this vision, Microsoft plans to make SharePoint more accessible, more intelligent and more personalised, to achieve this they have four areas of innovation:

• Simple and powerful file-sharing and collaboration on any device
• The mobile and intelligent intranet, with modern team sites, publishing and business applications on your desktop and in your pocket
• An open and connected platform that evolves SharePoint extensibility to embrace modern web development
• Investments in security, privacy and compliance across Office 365

Bright new SharePoint features for 2016

So what can we expect?

Over the last quarter and for the remainder of 2016, Microsoft will be making changes to both the on premises and online versions of the product.

These will include:

• Modern document library experience (currently rolling out to first release tenants), combining the power of SharePoint with OneDrive usability
• A new SharePoint mobile app for iOS (now available for download from iTunes store) – see it in action here
• A new SharePoint home in Office 365 gives you unified access, search capabilities and activity metrics for all of your sites – online and on-premises
• Modern lists experience, improvements to bulk editing and ease of use, automate processes with versions, approvals and alerts and enriched static information with people, images and metadata tags
• Site activity and insights on the site contents page to help site owners, members and visitors understand the activities occurring within the site

And new features planned for later in 2016:

• SharePoint mobile app for Windows and Android
• Integration of SharePoint sites and Office 365 Groups
• Simple, fast site creation
• Modern pages experience, providing a fluid, inline and responsive page authoring experience
• Team and organisational news and announcements
• PowerApps and Microsoft Flow integration with SharePoint lists and document libraries
• Access to SharePoint Online document libraries and Office 365 Group files from the OneDrive mobile app

If you want to get the most out of SharePoint, we can help. We’re a direct, gold Microsoft cloud solutions provider (CSP) partner so we have the highest level of trust from Microsoft.

For three satisfying years now, I’ve worked as Cloud Direct’s product manager. And in that time, I’ve developed quite a serious hunger for the latest technology. Particularly for how we can use it to help our customers.

This month, I had the incredible opportunity to attend Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Toronto, Canada. And I have to say it was one of the best weeks of my life. Microsoft certainly knows how to throw an event.

Excellent keynotes make you thirsty for more, informative sessions fill you to bursting. You can have bite-sized meetings in their breakout spaces and then, in the evening, the social events (I’m now a big fan of Icona Pop and Gwen Stefani!) leave you feeling well and truly full to bursting.

Some of that roundup may sound like it was a business-paid holiday. I assure you it wasn’t. The sheer amount of information shared at WPC was overwhelming. But my personal highlight, was confirmation on how well we at Cloud Direct know our products, and how to be a Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) partner. For us, it’s instinctive. Like putting on a pair of shoes for the first time that don’t rub.

In summary, WPC was the most satisfying meal I’ve had in ages.

So, get comfy, grab a napkin and join me for a WPC dinner.

The wine list

When sitting down to eat, the biggest decision you make is at the start; matching your menu choice to a great tipple.

It’s no different in the IT industry. Microsoft have an incredible partner network with thousands of companies that all specialise in different products or services. The key messaging was – “don’t try to do everything by yourself. Partner with an expert to enable your business to do more for your customers.”

Choose a bad partner and the whole delivery will leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Starters

There’s a lot of pressure on a starter. It’s your first experience of the food, so has the huge job of meeting your expectations, or even exceeding them.

What could ‘Microsoft the restaurant’ do to wow a set of IT professionals? They could show us the innovations they are working on; two in particular really got my taste buds going.

HoloLens

Not something new but an amazing dish, it’s the first fully self-contained, holographic computer (in a lovely set of glasses) that enables interaction with HD holograms in your world. The demo shown in one of the keynote speeches was from Japan Airlines and how they use HoloLens for training their mechanics – in this case on a new jet engine. All the parts were accessible to the mechanic, could be shown in scale, internal parts highlighted and brought out for further analysis, and fuel routes shown.

Rather than having to offline one of their aircraft, costing them time and money, Japan Airlines are able to provide cost effective training that gives a far more enriched and educational experience.

‘Seeing AI’

Saqib, a Microsoft developer based in London sadly lost his sight at the age of 7. But he found inspiration in computing and is helping build ‘Seeing AI’, a research project that helps people who are visually impaired or blind to better understand who and what is around them.

For instance, in the video shown Saqib hears a girl laugh, he touches his glasses and is told that there is a young girl playing with an orange frisbee. The project is built using intelligence APIs from Microsoft Cognitive Services (www.microsoft.com/cognitive) and is a truly humbling example of what we can achieve with technology.

Main courses

Microsoft services are the main course of the IT menu – everyone is ordering from them. Both General Electric and Facebook spoke in the keynote speeches about using cloud services to drive forward their businesses. And the best part about Microsoft services? They aren’t just affordable and practical for huge corporations with thousands to feed, but also very small companies who only want a nibble.

To quote Timothy Campos, CIO of Facebook – “Microsoft got cool again”.

Desserts

Nothing beats a good dessert, whether you’re a sticky toffee pudding or a savoury cheeseboard. In the IT world, we are all talking about digital transformation with the cloud being the last stage in your IT meal. More and more people are moving from on-premises IT to the cloud and Microsoft are no different. They have completely revamped their product portfolio to focus on cloud subscription services and they are growing their cloud portfolio to great levels. It was refreshing to see the company taking note of their partner and end-customers’ feedback. A lot of the roadmap, licencing and feature changes are coming from the users’ of their products. The cloud is here to stay and with Microsoft’s plans and ethics, they will continue to dominate this market.

Care for a coffee?

Being one of 20,000 partner employees at WPC was an incredible experience. By chatting over a coffee or two, I discovered so much about working with Microsoft and their products, not to mention how you can successfully build your business around this. As I drained my cup each evening, I left feeling I’d created more personal relationships with vendors and other partners, ensuring I’d get the best out of those contacts, for Cloud Direct customers.

And there you have it – my top WPC dining moments.

“Ignorance is like a delicate, exotic fruit. Touch it, and the bloom is gone”, says Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s satirical play The Importance of Being Earnest. Now, I’m no exotic fruit but, unlike Lady Bracknell, I’m all for education and learning. Just preferably not the hard way – which is often the way many organisations learn about the importance of professional project management when migrating to Microsoft Office 365. Here’s how to avoid the pain and experience a smooth migration to Microsoft Office 365.

In my role in professional services project management, people come to me with all manner of part-deployed Office 365 migrations. And the story is always the same: despair. Can you help us? they ask. Yes, we reply. But as any seasoned migration specialist will tell you: picking up a part-deployed migration is going to hurt.

The Dangers

Choosing Office 365 is a huge step forward for any business and, when managed well, it’s a game-changer. However, you MUST have a clear and precise plan for delivery. If you don’t, you’ll leave your company like Britain in the wake of the Brexit vote: in complete disarray. We’ve said we want to do this, but what next?

The key points of failure

Technology analysts at Bloor Research tell us that a massive 38% of cloud migrations fail. So where does it all go wrong? Here are four reasons that I hear nearly every week:

In the wake of HM Government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2016, cyber security is shooting up the agenda of small-medium organisations. According to the report, the most severe breaches can now cost small-midsize businesses as much as £310,000 – nearly three times the 2014 figure of £115,000. This blog looks at four critical ways cloud IT can help keep your data and business secure in our increasingly mobile world.

1. Manage who can access what data

A big challenge for organisations today is how to maintain control over business applications, across datacentres and public cloud platforms. Why is this? It’s mainly down to the increase in the number of a) employees bringing or choosing their own devices (BYOD) for work and b) the number of available Software as a Service (Saas) applications.

Identity and access management technology addresses this challenge directly. It protects you right across your cloud applications and on-premises deployments. It helps with two key areas:

Managing, monitoring and reporting on access to business resources

It protects access to applications and resources across the business, allowing additional levels of validation such as multi-factor authentication and conditional access policies. It also monitors suspicious activity with advanced security reporting, auditing and alerts.

Keeping employees productive with self-service and single sign-on

Rather than having to wait for helpdesk assistance, you can select which employees can self-serve tasks like resetting a forgotten password or requesting access to applications. At the same time, this frees up IT support resources.

This technology also features single sign-on, which means your people only have one username and password to remember. Plus they have a consistent experience from every device.

2. Manage your mobile devices and applications

The BYOD trend means employees are working from anywhere on any device and still want to access all their usual business resources. The challenge for IT administrators is how to enable this whilst at the same time protecting corporate resources from unauthorized access or use.

Application and device management technology is available either from the cloud or on-premises. It allows for remote wiping, for example, should a device be lost or stolen.

A few other things you can do:

• Deliver and manage apps across all main devices and operating systems – such as iOS, Android, Windows and iPhone – from a single management console
• Encrypt data, reset passcodes and lock devices
• Deploy apps automatically for new devices, and allow users to install apps easily from a self-service company portal
• Automatically deploy certificates, WiFi, VPN and email profiles once a device is enrolled, allowing your people to access corporate resources seamlessly – with all the appropriate security configurations
• Prevent data leakage by restricting actions such as copy, cut, paste and save

3. Detect dormant cyber threats before they strike

Cyber-attacks and threats are growing in sophistication, frequency and severity. Today, it’s possible for an attacker to infiltrate your network and remain unnoticed for more than eight months. Worryingly, most attacks use compromised user credentials and legitimate IT tools rather than malware. Cloud technology helps you find these attackers before they can do any harm.

It uses intelligence and deep packet inspection technology to automatically analyse, learn and identify normal and abnormal behaviour surrounding users, devices and resources.

This technology can:

• Detect malicious attacks in almost real-time
• Uncover abnormal behaviour such as anomalous logins, unknown threats, password sharing or lateral movement
• Identify known security risks such as broken trust, weak protocols and known protocol vulnerabilities
• Provide clear reporting with a single view so you can see only the data you want

Give you recommendations for investigation and remediation for each suspicious activity

4. Collaborate securely – even outside your organisation

This technology allows you to deploy and configure access to corporate resources right across your on-premises environment as well as your cloud applications, while keeping your corporate data protected. You can share corporate information both inside and outside your organisation. So you remain in control of your data, even when it’s shared with others.

It allows you to:

• Follow a document inside and outside your organisation using an encryption policy
• Protect virtually any file type on any device
• Share files safely in email or via your preferred cloud storage services such as Microsoft’s OneDrive
• Choose whether you want on-premises or cloud deployment
• Track your shared documents to learn about document use or abuse.

Remember, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.

To find out more about cloud technologies, check out Microsoft 365 Business, which combines the power of Microsoft’s cloud technologies in one, easy package.

Our founder and CEO Brett Raynes is a big fan of Jim Collin’s book: Good to Great. But what distinguishes a good service from a great one? At Cloud Direct we measure customer advocacy using the Net Promoter Score. How do we achieve those world-class results? Here are our 10 commandments for excellent service.

1. You shall keep communication channels open

Your customers (or clients, or colleagues) must be able to contact you when they need you. Whether it’s because they require a service or have a simple question, you should make sure communication channels are open to them. And let’s face it, there are many communication outlets to choose from.

At the very basic level there’s phone and email – and even web forms. But it may also be appropriate for you to run a customer portal. Most businesses have social media accounts, and you need to monitor this and respond immediately and effectively.

This last point can work a treat if done well. According to Bain, the research and analytics company, a customer who experiences social media engagement in response to a query spend 20 to 40 per cent more money.

But be careful not to spread yourself too thinly. The more contact points you have the more there is to manage.

2. You shall respond in a timely manner – always

Whatever your company policy is for getting back to customer phone calls or emails, make sure you stick to it. At Cloud Direct we designate different response times for different levels of urgency and for the specific services our customer has subscribed to. These have very strict service level agreements (SLAs), which we guarantee.

3. You shall listen to your customer

Customers are ordinary people just like you and me. And they want to be heard. Sometimes all you need do is listen to what they have to say. Avoid jumping in on the defensive – just listen. They may well have a valid point that your business can learn from.

Who knows, if handled well, the conversation could generate more business for you.

4. You shall treat your customer with respect

When dealing with a complaining, demanding, irate or just plain rude customer, be mindful not to lower yourself to their level of behaviour. Avoid expressing anger, impatience or using subjective, emotional language. Maintain your standards and continue treating your customer respectfully and, in turn, they will respect you. They might just be having a bad day and may well regret their bad attitude.

While it’s always unpleasant and certainly not right when people are disrespectful, at the end of the day when you’re mulling it over you can feel satisfied that you behaved well and remained respectful to your customer.

5. You shall not argue with your customer

Be aware that if you do enter into an argument with your customer, it’s a lose-lose situation. Even if you ‘win’, you’ll have alienated them and will likely lose their business irrevocably.

A customer is often wrong, but don’t be tempted to start defending yourself. Think positively by focusing on what’s occurred and how best you can help resolve the situation.

6. You shall honour your commitments

Don’t break your promises. If you offer a guarantee to back up your service level agreement (SLA) then you must honour it. If you say you’ll respond within a certain time-frame then do it. If you say you’ll provide a report on a particular day then do it. People hate to be disappointed in this way so it’s an easy route to ruining what could’ve been a good, long working relationship.

7. You shall do what you say

Similar to the sixth commandment, be aware of doing what you say you will on a day-to-day level. If you say you’ll call them first thing in the morning, then call them first thing in the morning. Trust is such an important factor in service relations, yet it’s so easy to lose if you end up frustrating and irritating your customer who’s waiting for a call that never happens.

8. You shall nurture your customer relations – not sell to them

Too often sales and marketing teams err down the path of sales and ‘lead generation’ without first looking to their customers to make sure they’re happy with their existing service and they’re getting the most out of it. This is where your customer success team is key. It’s their job first and foremost to make sure the customer understands what they have bought to the extent that they’re leveraging this service to the fullest across the business. If that box is ticked, they should be only too happy to trust you enough to buy more services from you if appropriate – or at least keep their business with you.

9. You shall apologise if you make a mistake

In the words of Alexander Pope: “To err is human, to forgive is divine”. We all make mistakes, and if you do make a mistake, don’t try denying it or covering it up. That’s a sure-fire way of losing all credibility as your customer will (quite rightly) doubt your professional integrity – which is much worse than making a mistake. Mistakes can be rectified. To rebuild trust is an entirely different matter.

So admit your mistake, apologise and fix it. Again, this can be an opportunity to strengthen a relationship. How people deal with mistakes is a real test of moral fibre, so you could end up bringing your relationship to a whole new level, opening more doors for your business.

10. You shall train and empower your staff

This is the linchpin to successful customer service. When your staff are well-trained they will understand their role in the business, their levels of authority and feel empowered to make well-informed, useful decisions. For example, our staff are constantly trained so they can develop to their fullest potential. Not only does this help you keep good people, but it also helps if you want an Investors in People (IIP) accreditation, for example. Our training programmes are one way we annually maintain our IIP gold status and were finalists in their first-ever IIP Awards in the Employer of the Year category.

So there you have our top 10 behaviours of a great customer service business. If you found that useful, you might like this: The top 10 reasons why our customers stay with us.

If you need support or consultancy in choosing, migrating, deploying or managing Microsoft Office 365 cloud technology, feel free to review our support services:

It’s no secret that a customer-centric business is a successful business. Yet some of the statistics I’m sharing with you here tell a story of frustration and alienation amongst many customers who say they often feel like stuck records and are missing the personal touch.

What your customers and industry experts think

1. Your customers’ experiences will dictate your business success

• In 2016, 89 per cent of businesses will compete mainly on customer experience compared to 36 per cent four years ago. (Source: Gartner)
• 92 per cent of organisations that consider customer experience as a differentiator offer multiple contact channels. (Source: Deloitte)

2. Your customers are just not that into you

• By 2020, the customer will manage 85 per cent of its relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human. (Source: Gartner)
• 89 per cent of customers switched brands once or twice in the last year. (Source: NewVoice)

3. Your customers feel like stuck records

• 80 per cent of customers say that companies do not have the context of their last conversation. (Source: Marketwatch)
• 56 per cent of customers have to re-explain an issue when speaking to customer service. (Source: Harvard Business Review)

4. Social media: this time it’s personal

• When companies engage and respond to customer service requests over social media, those customers spend from 20 to 40 per cent more money with the company than other customers do. (Source: Bain)

5. You get no second chances

• 78 per cent of consumers have bailed on a transaction or not made an intended purchase because of a poor service experience. (Source: American Express)

6. Help your customers help themselves

• 83 per cent of online shoppers need support to complete a purchase. (Source: eConsultancy)

7. Smart customer service is mobile

• 75 per cent of consumers think companies should make answers to all their common questions available via smartphones. (Source: Synthetix)

So how does a business build or maintain a personal touch in this brave new world where we all rely so heavily on technology? How can we use technology to our advantage to help support our customer service goals?

Find out how Office 365 can help you build more profitable customer relationships through more engaging communications in this 15-minute webinar video from Microsoft: “How to connect with your customers.”

If you need support or consultancy in choosing, migrating, deploying or managing Microsoft Office 365 cloud technology, feel free to review our support suite options for business users and IT administrators.

High productivity levels are essential for strong business growth. And, now that time has proven cloud IT secure, even highly regulated organisations are enjoying the increased productivity that comes with Microsoft’s cloud service, Office 365. But what if your business is ensconced in old-school GroupWise for email, contacts and calendar? How do you appease users who fear they may lose out in the migration to Exchange Online?

The fear: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

Scientists have linked the “bird in the hand” effect with what psychologists call the “endowment effect”, where we overvalue what we have and undervalue what we don’t have. Where this occurs in business and trade, the economic repercussions can be devastating. At best productivity and growth slump, at worst, the life is squeezed out of them.

For users of GroupWise who suspect they’ll lose out in a move to Microsoft Office 365 Exchange Online, here are eight common myths that we can release into the depths of yesteryear. While a couple of these arguments may’ve worked against Exchange on-premises, for Exchange Online all arguments are now void.

With Exchange…

Myth #1: there’s no future-proofing or infrastructure flexibility

With cloud services, such as Exchange Online, this issue becomes irrelevant. The very nature of cloud services means your solution is hosted in the cloud so infrastructure, operating systems and servers are no longer your concern. Instead, you can access Exchange Online using a web browser on any computer. Mobile apps allow seamless access to mail on any computer with an internet connection, or from multiple devices like tablets and smartphones, including Windows Phone, iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices.

Myth #2: it’s often difficult to upgrade

With Exchange Online you’re automatically given the latest software versions and security updates available. Not only is it not difficult, but you don’t even notice it going on behind the scenes. You just get on with your work. It’s an enterprise-level solution that requires little investment and management overheads. Instead, you get all the capabilities of Exchange Server without the need to buy, upgrade or manage hardware – you just pay a monthly subscription.

Myth #3: you won’t get cross-product collaboration

You can, if you want to, simply migrate your email and not your calendar or contacts. Office 365 will work regardless. That said, it makes more sense to move calendars and contacts to the cloud so users can access them securely wherever they are, exactly as they would in the office. So they’ll have access to global address lists, tasks or shared calendars to schedule meetings, book meeting rooms or other resources.

Myth #4: you’ll need lots of storage space

Exchange Online gives you 50GB mailboxes and the ability to send messages up to 150MB in size, so your staff can always be productive and part of the team, wherever they are. In the Office 365 Enterprise E3 and E5 Plans, Exchange Online includes archiving and legal hold capabilities, plus unlimited inbox storage to meet compliance needs. Data loss prevention (DLP) policies and digital rights management also help make sure sensitive data isn’t emailed outside your business.

Myth #5: you’ll miss out on a home view in Outlook

Like GroupWise home view, Office 365’s SharePoint acts as a personal productivity cockpit. Users can design it to work the way they want it to, pulling in web pages, data feeds and teaming folders. Furthermore, they can share and collaborate on documents, and access them securely from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Myth #6: you don’t know who’s accepted an appointment

Exchange Online has a feature that allows you to see exactly who has accepted or declined meetings, marking their response in the calendared meeting.

Myth #7: you can’t retract a sent email

Just as GroupWise would allow you to delete an email before it gets opened, so can Exchange Online; Message Recall will delete the email from the recipient’s inbox. To avoid a rash ‘send’ in the first place, you can also set up a delayed send rule, say for one minute, which could be just about enough time for a moment of better judgement.

Myth #8: your most used folders and contacts aren’t at your fingertips

Again, untrue. In Outlook, you can set up your ‘favourite’ folders. And Office 365’s Skype for Business pushes your most frequently contacted associates to the top.

If your business is no longer constrained by purely office-based work, productivity could increase by 30 to 40 per cent, according to research published by Microsoft.  Being able to do business anywhere is a key capability for 2016 that Office 365 addresses with bells on. Here are 10 ways Office 365 keeps your business mobile and increases productivity.

“Work is something you do, not somewhere you go.” ~ Laurie Coots

1. Office 365 is in the cloud – with OneDrive hosting service

Gone with the wind is the need for a physical onsite server or a contract with an offsite host. With Office 365, Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud hosting service gives you 24/7/365 access to business email and projects. You can be seriously competitive – ready and able to respond to any request and meet any deadline.

Never again worry about office closures or operational interruptions or incidents

2. Data is encrypted and highly secure, meeting industry standards and regulations

On top of encryption, your data is stored on Microsoft’s physically secure servers, which are also protected with continuous threat management and security monitoring. Additionally, Office 365’s controls are approved by EU data privacy authorities. In 2014, Microsoft became the first cloud provider to receive approval from the Article 29 Working Party, an independent advisory body established by the European Parliament to focus on data protection. The ruling confirmed that Microsoft meets the high standards of EU data protection legislation so, regardless of where data is stored, it’s protected to a standard approved by EU authorities.

3. It’s accessible on multiple devices, anywhere

Each Office 365 user can sync their license to up to five different devices, including any PC/Mac, and any iOS, Android or Windows device. Video-conference from a laptop in your sitting room, edit a presentation on your tablet on the plane or check up on emails at your favourite coffee house.

4. You always have the latest version of applications and software

Office 365 has all your old favourites such as Word, Excel, Power Point and Outlook. It also has SharePoint, where you can manage projects, share documents and collaborate with your team – all in real time.

5. You get a serious amount of storage for mailboxes and files

No longer need you worry if a ginormous file will clog your inbox of if your physical exchange server is approaching capacity. With Office 365 cloud storage, you get exchange mailbox storage of 50 GB, and one TB of file storage. Store and back up all of your large, critical files online and access them anywhere.

Office 365 also increases business productivity because of these five awesome things.

6. Communication is sophisticated and fast

Keep your teams up-to-date of everyone’s whereabouts and activities with shared calendars and instant messaging. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, you can all keep in touch.

7. Teams can collaborate on projects with SharePoint

Be confident that you and your team are always working on the latest SharePoint versions of ongoing projects. You can:

• Plan and monitor projects using shared calendars, task lists and other tools
• Design and automate workflows
• Develop your own business tools like a company survey, blog or even Intranet
• Connect and create with SharePoint’s co-authoring and video-conference features

8. Social: Yammer and Skype for Business increase employee engagement and productivity

If you want your employees to bond and even become friends, Office 365’s Skype for Business (formerly Lync) and Yammer, a private social network designed for businesses, will help do just that. With increased communication on a more social level, employees can enjoy a stronger sense of belonging, which is proven to improve employee engagement and productivity. We can personally vouch for that at Cloud Direct, where we make great use of Yammer and Skype for Business. Since we introduced it to the business, employee engagement has increased and remained consistently high.

9. You choose the plan that suits your business

Pick from a selection of Microsoft’s Office 365 subscription plans and customise features to serve your business size and needs.

10. ROI: you save on travel costs, IT support and software – and gain in productivity

In terms of basic cost savings, Office 365 saves you spending money on hardware, third-party software, additional IT support and unnecessary travel costs. A 2014 HBR-Verizon survey report showed that, of companies that had moved email and data to the cloud, nearly two thirds (61 per cent) recorded increased employee productivity.