By 2025, it is expected that at least 70% of the workforce will work from home at least 5 days out of the month; a significant change since before 2020. As a result of the increase in remote working, businesses have had to improvise and consider other means of communicating with their teams. Company directors and managers have begun to use video conferencing solutions to enable discussions remotely, with many choosing Microsoft Teams for this task. So, what are the benefits of Teams and why should your business choose it over other conferencing and communication programs?
Suitable for Large Companies
Larger businesses with offices all over the world can use Teams effectively and, more importantly, it can be governed to ensure it is utilized appropriately and efficiently. Access can be given and taken away, usage risks can be identified and trends can be measured when using this platform. Streams, for instance, is a popular MS Teams tool - and the best part is, it requires no download. As the name suggests, Streams is mainly used for video (presentations) and can be uploaded to the Microsoft Stream website; from there, they can be copied via the share button by anyone who has access.
In March 2020, at the peak of home working, 2.7 billion minutes were spent on Teams meetings, with the program becoming the primary tool for business collaboration. Teams currently has 145 million daily active users, an increase of 75 million from 2020.
Video Conferencing
Team video conferencing has a range of features designed to make business communication quick and easy. One of the key features is that it can be integrated with other Microsoft apps such as Outlook. This means that meetings can be booked within the email system and will be added to both the calendar in Outlook and the calendar in Teams. If your company is already a user of Microsoft technology, this makes organization and planning much more streamlined. Using this function has been shown to improve employee relations, with 87% saying they feel more connected to their colleagues when working from home and using video chat.
Document Collaboration
This feature of Teams is probably what makes it stand out from other video conferencing and collaboration apps. Files can be uploaded directly to the chat function and can also be retained within active chats. This makes for easy collaboration, particularly on live documents which have to be updated by several people and on a regular basis. This is a cost-effective way to share management information, statistics and project-related documentation. This eliminates problems with email file sharing as the average email inbox cannot hold large documents. Email can be saved for discussions surrounding documents if it requires confidentiality but Teams is a better option for document management.
The average worker spends five hours per day checking emails, but using Teams can significantly reduce the amount received. Messages can be sent and received immediately, which quickly allows the user to obtain and share information without any delay to projects and without anything being potentially missed. Teams is a cost-effective and easy to use collaboration tool for businesses, particularly those using a hybrid model of remote working and office working.