Wondering if Microsoft Office 365 is right for your small or medium sized business?
If not, you should be. The fact of the matter is, all businesses should be utilizing Office 365 (or at least a portion of it).
But... in today’s blog, we’re not going to be talking about the basics of why you need Office 365. If you want to learn more about that, check out our past blog post here.
What I want to talk to you about today is why you should purchase or upgrade to Office 365’s Business Premium Plan.
It can be hard to know when to purchase or upgrade a piece of software and Office 365 is no different. However, with the Business Premium plan, there are tremendous security and collaboration benefits – so many, in fact, that lots of SMBs have decided that it’s almost a no-brainer to use it. Here’s why.
Data Protection
Security is paramount in business. As today’s technology develops, so do hackers’ abilities to tap into areas that should be kept private. Their abilities pose a distinct risk to your SMB. That’s why Office 365 Business Premium incorporated data protection into their product and why we’re mentioning it first. It’s that important.
Some of the top data protection features in Office 365 Business Premium include seamless exchange of encrypted and rights-protected emails to help prevent inappropriate sharing or infiltration of sensitive documents. As well as cloud storage with built in data protection that’s able to flag and protect over 80 different sensitive data types from credit cards and bank statements, to passport numbers and medical information.
To improve ease of use, Office 365 Business Premium can be incorporated and used on all of your devices. Regardless of where you are and whether you’re using your phone, tablet, laptop, or PC, your data protection goes with you, keeping you secure on the go and in the office.
Microsoft Teams
One of Office 365 Business Premium’s most popular tools is Microsoft Teams. This is a collaboration tool that enables you to communicate through threads company-wide, or privately from person-to-person. Through it, you can share files, hold online meetings, and manage how each person receives communications regardless of device.
The reason why this is so popular is because it’s helping bring geographically diverse teams closer together. Suddenly, the distance between teams doesn’t feel so large. By bridging that gap, more can get done in less time, enhancing the overall productivity of everyone in your small business.
This collaboration tool makes it easier to work in the Office programs employees are used to, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint but take that work a step further by co-editing the documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in real time.
Microsoft StaffHub
One of the hardest parts of managing a team is managing the schedule. Sifting through vacation requests and juggling staffing when employees call in to work eats away at productivity. To simplify this task and help teams stay closer aligned, Office 365 Business Premium has scheduling capabilities ingrained into its platform. With Microsoft StaffHub, schedules can be created, shared, and even integrated in other platforms.
Free Upgrades
With how fast technology is evolving, keeping up with the latest upgrades is a necessity. With the business premium version of Microsoft Office 365, you get free upgrades to the latest version every time an update is rolled out.
In addition, as developers continue to strengthen the Office 365 platform against security threats, the client will be updated to support these upgrades automatically. That means data loss prevention policies and advanced protection for all Microsoft products from Outlook to Excel and Word to PowerPoint will get consistently upgraded to keep your business even safer from outside threats.
Wide variety of features
Beyond the great features mentioned above, Office 365 Business Premium also has a ton of capabilities to help improve both your businesses productivity and reach.
Features like Microsoft Connections, Microsoft Listings, and Outlook Customer Manager will help you get discovered as well as improve communications with new and existing customers. Plus, help keep the internal functions of your business in order with assistance from applications like Microsoft Invoicing, Microsoft Bookings, MileIQ, and Business center.
Office 365 Business Premium Vs Microsoft 365 Business
For the majority of our clients, Office 365 Business Premium is the perfect fit. But, in some cases, clients want even more features. We then recommend Microsoft 365 Business which is a turnkey suite of integrated applications all grouped together. Microsoft 365 Business includes Windows 10, Office 365, and the Enterprise Mobility and Security package. Along with this come free security updates and a license to the most current version of MS desktop operating software plus current Windows 10 for you device. These upgrade are not included with Office 365 Business Premium.
Below we have a cheat sheet to simplify the differences between Microsoft 365 Business and Office 365 Business Premium.
