Let’s kick off at a very basic level. Firstly what actually is Office 365? This is a common question from organisations that may or may not already have some of their business in the cloud. Perhaps their backup and disaster recovery solutions are at least part cloud-based – but now they’re seriously looking at increasing the productivity levels – the efficiency – of their teams as people become less office-based and more mobile.

Office 365 is a subscription plan that lets you access all your business tools and keep your business moving – from wherever you and your staff happen to be – at any time, from any place and on any device. 365 days a year – well, 366 on a Leap Year, of course. Office 365 includes access to all the Office applications you know and love – Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and email Exchange (which are always up-to-date). It also has some impressive productivity boosting solutions like:

• SharePoint – which incorporates your company intranet and content and document management store
• Yammer – for a social network that promotes collaboration across your company and teams
• Skype for Business – which includes presence, instant messaging and smart web conferencing; and the
• Enterprise Mobility Suite – which keeps your mobile workforce productive and your business protected – with high-level control over user access, devices and your data

It’s hosted in the cloud, so you pay a monthly subscription.