As a small business owner, you have limited time to try out new software that claims it will help your business. If it is hard to set up, figure out and actually use, you are likely to shy away from it, or just use the basic functionality of the product.
When it comes to Microsoft Office 365, it’s clear right off that bat what it is supposed to offer your business. The basics like secure email and apps like Word, Excel and PowerPoint are what everyone knows.
But there has to be more. It is called Office 365 after all. What is included that makes it worth the time to add it to your business? The answer is a lot.
To keep it simple for now, Office 365 allows you to do business on the go. There are four clear benefits that stand out when it comes to working wherever you need to be.
1. Access your Office files anywhere
The most powerful benefit of Office 365 for any small business is having access to your files from anywhere thanks to being set up in the cloud. With a subscription, you have access to 1 TB of storage in OneDrive. This means you or your team can access files no matter the location. You don’t have to sign in to the network at the office and you can work on almost any device. You can work on an Excel spreadsheet on your office desktop, someone else can edit the same spreadsheet on an iPad at a coffee shop, and then you can again edit it at home on a laptop. This includes PC and Mac by the way. Changes are synced automatically in real-time which means the most up to date version is always being worked on. No more editing, saving and emailing the file back and forth, wasting valuable time. Office 365 collaboration tools are vital for any small company that needs to keep business on the go.
2. Work remotely with Online Office web apps
With Office 365, you can also edit your files in OneDrive using any web browser. This is great when you have access to a laptop or PC but don’t have Office installed. A lot of employees will have the fully installed version of Office on their work computer, but not necessarily any options at home. There is also the handy option of the Outlook Web app. This works great if you don’t carry your work laptop back and forth and want to check work email at home. The Outlook Web app is fast, has powerful search capabilities, and replicates the same folder structure as you would have on the desktop version. Keep in mind that the web app versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint have most, but not all, of the functionality of their full desktop versions. But they certainly have the basic functionality that most users need when away from their office computers.
3. Use Office on iPad and other devices
Everyone who has one, loves their IPad. So it’s natural when they are on the go, they want to do work on their favourite device. Depending on your plan, you have access to versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook on the iPad and iPhone. The iPad Office apps are excellent and provide you with a majority of the functionality of the full Office apps on a PC. This is more than enough for most of the things any business owner need to do on the go. Things like editing data tables in Excel, format documents in Word, or create full presentations in PowerPoint. The Outlook Web app has useful tools to filter and search messages. It has a very cool feature that gives you two tabs for email: “Focus” and “Other”. The “Focus” tab learns who you most frequently interact with and automatically filters your email messages to just these individuals. This is a great feature for those who receive a lot of email daily and want to focus on the most important ones first. There is also an Android version for those who are not all things Apple. The point, you are not forced to use devices you don’t want to. Office 365 makes it easy to access your work anywhere and keep each mobile device secure.
4. No more technology pains
Your company’s technology needs to not only run smoothly, but also be secure and easy to manage. Office 365 from myhosting lets you easily manage users, email and file-sharing policies. Setting up Office 365 is easy because our team helps you every step of the way and well after you have been using it. No IT experts required. You simply add Office 365 to your business and it will always be up to date. You don’t have to worry about updates, security patches or new feature additions. It will all be taken care of in the background so you can focus on day-to-day business. Office 365 is perfect for small business as it can be installed on almost any type of smartphone, laptop or tablet device. Plus, it comes with anti-malware and spam protection built in to help keep your information safe from unauthorized users.
Get started with Office 365 from myhosting today and quickly see for yourself how it can help your business be more productive on the go.
