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What is Microsoft Viva?

Described by Microsoft as an “employee experience platform”, Viva is one in a long line of Microsoft tools designed to make our working lives easier. If you’re using Teams, the chances are you’ve already got access to Viva at some level. Here, we share a little more about what exactly Microsoft Viva is, why it might be useful, and what you need to do enable it. What exactly is Microsoft Viva and how does it work? You could think of it as an ‘add-on’ to Microsoft Teams. It’s a platform that uses insights and intelligence to enrich your experience. If you head to your Teams now and click on the ellipsis on the left-hand side, search ‘viva’ – you should see a list of Microsoft Viva apps that you can install (just like it’s shown below).  What you’re able to then do in each of the apps will depend on your licensing. But we’ll come on to that in more detail a little further down in this blog. What can I do with Microsoft Viva? Microsoft Viva is made up 5 modules, and each has their own app to install: Connections Learning Insights Topics Goals (coming in Q3 2022) Let’s look at each of them in a bit more detail Connections If you have a SharePoint intranet, this one should be on your list to set up. With Viva Connections you can add your SharePoint intranet so that everything sits in the same place, on Teams. You’ll also be able to see your own customisable dashboard that can hold information and quickly access things such as, your pay slips, holiday requests, your upcoming tasks etc. It’s an elevated intranet, in the space you’re most familiar with. Learning Learning & development is shown to be a huge contributor to how fulfilled an employee feels in their role. Viva learning can be an easy way to help with this. When you install the Viva learning app on Teams, you’ll see that you can pick out your interests and Microsoft will make learning recommendations based on this. There are tons of free Microsoft courses that you can view, but you can also integrate Viva Learning with your LinkedIn to make the most of any learning courses you have access to on there. Similarly, if your company uses another learning provider, you might find that they’re already linked in with Viva Learning, meaning you can have everything sitting in your Teams app. Insights Viva Insights is made up of three levels: personal insights, manager insights and organisation insights. Personal is included in your usual M365 licensing, but manager and organisation do require an additional licence. Insights is all about wellbeing, how we can make better work habits and processes to protect our own wellbeing, and that of our team. With personal insights you can see how much time you’re spending in meetings, colleagues you haven’t connected with in a while, and set aside focus time where you won’t be distracted by messages or emails. Manager insights is a handy tool to help you pick up on potential signs of burnout (are my employees spending too much time in long meetings, are they having to log on before/after-hours etc). Viva insights will give you handy tips on how to manage this to help protect your team from burnout. The final level, organisational insights, is really a tool for stakeholders to see overall stats to give them reliable insights to make informed decisions. The data is aggregated, meaning it’s completely anonymous. It’s not about picking out certain employees, and watching when they log on, it’s about recognising patterns and making improvements based on what you learn from them. Topics Viva topics, one we think is probably best suited to companies with a high number of employees – for now anyway. It does require an additional licence, so it’s an investment, but one worthwhile if you’re running a large organisation with lots of team members working remotely. Viva topics, as explained here by Microsoft, is a knowledge management tool. It creates topic cards related to projects, keeping information all in one centralised place for everyone who needs it. Goals You’ll need to hang on tight for this one as it’s not quite ready yet. But what we know about it so far sounds interesting. This new module will let you set and manage goals. Within Teams, you’ll be able to track progress against goals (individually and on a team level), assign owners to goals, and celebrate team wins A lot of us work to objectives, but usually they’re either saved on a Word Doc or tracked on a costly HR application. Integrating your employees’ objectives into a tool you’re already comfortable with seems like a logical step. We’ll let you know when the official release is announced, later this year. Do I have access to Microsoft Viva? As Microsoft explain here, you’ll need these licenses to get access to Viva: Microsoft 365 F1, F3, E3, A3, E5, and A5; Office 365 F3, E1, A1, E3, A3, E5, and A5; Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, and Business Premium; or SharePoint K, Plan 1, or Plan 2 If you’re unsure if you have access and would like us to take a look at how Viva might work for you, let us know here.
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Hybrid work is here to stay: What’s next for hybrid work in 2022?

It’s no secret that hybrid work is here to stay, many businesses have already made the transition to the new workplace model, and many more will follow suite in 2022. Read our blog to find out more about how you can get the most out of a hybrid workplace.
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Hybrid working: how technology can support your move to a hybrid workplace

Technology can support the move to hybrid working to ensure employees can be product, collaborate effectively, and stay secure, no matter where they are located. Learn more here.
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4 ways to boost productivity with a hybrid work model

Many employees are returning to the office as part of a hybrid work model. To ensure that productivity doesn't suffer, read our blog on ways to boost it instead >
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Hybrid working: How the get the most out of Microsoft 365

With a return to the office in sight, the future of the workplace for many businesses will be a hybrid working model. Moving to a hybrid workplace can deliver the best of both worlds and has many benefits to productivity, employee wellbeing, and work-life balance.  To facilitate this transition, it will be important to get the most out of your current Microsoft 365 subscription. Microsoft has all the collaboration, communication and productivity tools necessary for a successful move to hybrid working. However, the breadth of Microsoft’s product offering can make it difficult to know how to best use each app to support the move.  Here, we have compiled a few tips on how to get the most out of Microsoft Apps as you move to a hybrid workplace. Your Microsoft 365 hybrid workplace SharePoint In a hybrid workplace, one of the most important considerations will be how to have a seamless work experience, no matter where you are working. SharePoint is a tool that allows access to all organisational files that can be edited and collaborated on no matter where you are located or what device is being used. This means that whether an employee is at home, in the office or on the train, they will be able to collaborate with their colleagues on shared documents. SharePoint is also a perfect tool as a repository of organisation wide data that can be accessed from anywhere. This may include templates, forms, procedures and business data. Having it all in a single place makes it easy for employees to find the documents they need, regardless of whether they are in the office or at home. Planner When working both remotely and in the office, it can be difficult to manage all tasks that need to be completed in a team. This is even more tricky if email is the primary tool of communication and planning, as it is easy to lose a request in a sea of emails. In Microsoft Planner you can create a plan, add individual tasks to the plan and assign these tasks to members of your team. Tasks can also be synced from emails so your team spends less time searching and more time doing. To help the move to hybrid working these plans can be accessed and completed on any device, anywhere. Microsoft Planner can also be integrated with Teams and all other Microsoft 365 applications to keep all communication, collaboration, and productivity in one place. Whiteboard One of the best methods for brainstorming and collaborating in meetings is a good old-fashioned whiteboard. With both hybrid and remote working this was more difficult, however with Microsoft Whiteboard, multiple users can collaborate on a virtual whiteboard from a variety of devices. The whiteboard can also be added to a Teams meeting to collaborate in real time with colleagues for brainstorming, project planning or to explain a concept. Yammer Yammer is an organisation-wide social platform built for enterprise communication. Yammer is easy to set up and fosters a culture of transparency, connection and open communication. With a move to a hybrid workplace model Yammer is a fantastic tool to stay up to date with what is happening within a company, both from a strategy and personal viewpoint. Yammer also offers employees the opportunity to ask questions to a wider company audience, increasing productivity and communication. Yammer also allows members of an organisation that would not normally interact a chance to meet those in other teams to make a business feel more connected. To make the move to a hybrid workplace seamless experience a business should make the most of their existing Microsoft 365 subscription. Hybrid working may not be possible for all businesses or industries, but for those that can work in the office and remotely there will be a myriad of benefits.  If you want to find out more on how to make the most out of your Microsoft 365 subscription, get in touch today.
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How to make the hybrid working work effectively for your organisation

A recent study has shown that 73% of employees want flexible work options to continue once restrictions ease, and 67% are craving more in-person time with their teams. This combination of statistics show that business leaders would be wise to listen to employees and start planning for a hybrid work model.   A move to a hybrid workplace has many of the benefits of both remote working and a full-time return to the office. However, this decision should not be taken lightly as there are many factors that must be considered to ensure that a hybrid work environment is effective and sets employees up for success. Hybrid work needs to focus on employee wellbeing One of the key considerations for an effective hybrid workplace strategy is a focus on employee wellbeing. If managed correctly a flexible hybrid working model should increase employee wellbeing through better work-life balance, reduce commuting time and costs and increase motivation and communication. Although there are potentially many wellbeing benefits of hybrid working, business leaders must consider for some employees it will be a difficult adjustment period as many employees will not have been in the office for over a year. A sudden change to their place of work may be stressful and tiring due to a return to commuting, significantly more social contact, and the challenges of a new work-life balance. For business leaders, the best way to manage employee wellbeing is through communication and flexibility. Employees should be involved in the decision of when and how a return to the office will work and specific concerns and anxieties should be addressed. Leverage technology for collaboration and communication Technology has played a pivotal role in the move to remote working and will continue to if hybrid working is implemented. The difference will be that technology will have to support a seamless experience regardless of where employees are working.  From a hardware perspective this may be using a laptop with a dock in the office so employees can easily transport their device between work and home and not have to unplug cables each time. From a software perspective it is important to utilise communication and collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams to their full ability. This is especially important if there are employees working in the same team but in the office on different days to ensure they do not feel disconnected from the rest of the team. It is also important to provide training and support with hybrid working technology as all employees will rely heavily on these features to enable productivity in the workplace. Don’t forget security In March 2020, when the first lockdown was announced, the move to remote work was abrupt and this led to poor security procedures for many companies. Cybercriminals took advantage of this, with cyber crime increasing by 72% in the first month of lockdown.  After a year of working from home most organisations have implemented security policies and procedures to ensure that employees are working securely on their own networks. As there is more time to plan a hybrid workplace, security needs to be considered from the start. This may include deploying multi-factor authentication, Azure Virtual Desktops (previously Windows Virtual Desktop) and centralising data so employees stay secure and productive, regardless of where they are working. It won’t be perfect straight away Business leaders need to be thoughtful with their implementation of a hybrid work model and consider the research as well as employees’ opinions to form a comprehensive framework to set everyone up for success. That said, just as remote work was a new experience for many over a year ago, hybrid work will be the same, and there will be an adjustment period and issues that require the model to be adjusted to suit each company and individual. Although this adjustment period may be not ideal, business leaders should regularly review and optimise their hybrid work environment to ensure it works effectively for all employees. The move from remote working to hybrid working, if managed correctly, has a plethora of benefits and can be the best of both worlds for employees and business leaders alike. If you want to find out more on how to optimise your hybrid workplace model or manage your IT and technology strategy to suit hybrid working – get in touch today!
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How the Microsoft Productivity Score can boost productivity and collaboration

After over a year of working from home some employees cannot wait to get back to the office, whereas others find it easier to remain productive at home. Find out the productivity pros and cons, and how to boost productivity in our blog >
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Microsoft Teams for Unified Communications

Microsoft Teams is a powerful remote collaboration tool, however what makes Teams such an attractive unified communications solution? Find out in our blog >
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5 ways to reduce your digital carbon footprint at work

Remote work has helped many people reduce their carbon footprint in relation to travel, but at the same time their digital carbon footprint has increased. Here are 5 ways to reduce this too.
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The importance of Microsoft Teams call recording for regulated industries

We’ve all had automated voices tell us our call is being recorded, but for some businesses, call recording is the difference between success and failure. A Microsoft Teams call recording solution could help your business remain secure & compliant, whilst boosting productivity.
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Choosing the right Microsoft 365 subscription for your non-profit

Microsoft 365 has six subscriptions offerings for non-profits, presenting affordable options to improve productivity. With that many options, how do you decide which plan is right for you? Our latest blog breaks down each of them to help you find your golden plan >
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Digital transformation winners in the financial services sector

Businesses that were already undergoing digital transformation when the pandemic hit have seen serious return on investment in the last 12 months. Especially in the financial industry. Find out how financial firms are succeeding with new technologies.
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Man on laptop

What is Microsoft Viva?

Described by Microsoft as an “employee experience platform”, Viva is one in a long line of Microsoft tools designed to make our working lives easier.

If you’re using Teams, the chances are you’ve already got access to Viva at some level.

Here, we share a little more about what exactly Microsoft Viva is, why it might be useful, and what you need to do enable it.

What exactly is Microsoft Viva and how does it work?

You could think of it as an ‘add-on’ to Microsoft Teams. It’s a platform that uses insights and intelligence to enrich your experience.

If you head to your Teams now and click on the ellipsis on the left-hand side, search ‘viva’ – you should see a list of Microsoft Viva apps that you can install (just like it’s shown below). 

Microsoft Viva

What you’re able to then do in each of the apps will depend on your licensing. But we’ll come on to that in more detail a little further down in this blog.

What can I do with Microsoft Viva?

Microsoft Viva is made up 5 modules, and each has their own app to install:

Let’s look at each of them in a bit more detail

Connections

If you have a SharePoint intranet, this one should be on your list to set up.

With Viva Connections you can add your SharePoint intranet so that everything sits in the same place, on Teams.

You’ll also be able to see your own customisable dashboard that can hold information and quickly access things such as, your pay slips, holiday requests, your upcoming tasks etc.

It’s an elevated intranet, in the space you’re most familiar with.

Learning

Learning & development is shown to be a huge contributor to how fulfilled an employee feels in their role.

Viva learning can be an easy way to help with this.

When you install the Viva learning app on Teams, you’ll see that you can pick out your interests and Microsoft will make learning recommendations based on this.

There are tons of free Microsoft courses that you can view, but you can also integrate Viva Learning with your LinkedIn to make the most of any learning courses you have access to on there. Similarly, if your company uses another learning provider, you might find that they’re already linked in with Viva Learning, meaning you can have everything sitting in your Teams app.

Insights

Viva Insights is made up of three levels: personal insights, manager insights and organisation insights. Personal is included in your usual M365 licensing, but manager and organisation do require an additional licence.

Insights is all about wellbeing, how we can make better work habits and processes to protect our own wellbeing, and that of our team.

With personal insights you can see how much time you’re spending in meetings, colleagues you haven’t connected with in a while, and set aside focus time where you won’t be distracted by messages or emails.

Manager insights is a handy tool to help you pick up on potential signs of burnout (are my employees spending too much time in long meetings, are they having to log on before/after-hours etc). Viva insights will give you handy tips on how to manage this to help protect your team from burnout.

The final level, organisational insights, is really a tool for stakeholders to see overall stats to give them reliable insights to make informed decisions.

The data is aggregated, meaning it’s completely anonymous. It’s not about picking out certain employees, and watching when they log on, it’s about recognising patterns and making improvements based on what you learn from them.

Topics

Viva topics, one we think is probably best suited to companies with a high number of employees – for now anyway.

It does require an additional licence, so it’s an investment, but one worthwhile if you’re running a large organisation with lots of team members working remotely.

Viva topics, as explained here by Microsoft, is a knowledge management tool. It creates topic cards related to projects, keeping information all in one centralised place for everyone who needs it.

Goals

You’ll need to hang on tight for this one as it’s not quite ready yet. But what we know about it so far sounds interesting.

This new module will let you set and manage goals. Within Teams, you’ll be able to track progress against goals (individually and on a team level), assign owners to goals, and celebrate team wins

A lot of us work to objectives, but usually they’re either saved on a Word Doc or tracked on a costly HR application.

Integrating your employees’ objectives into a tool you’re already comfortable with seems like a logical step.

We’ll let you know when the official release is announced, later this year.

Do I have access to Microsoft Viva?

As Microsoft explain here, you’ll need these licenses to get access to Viva:

Microsoft 365 F1, F3, E3, A3, E5, and A5; Office 365 F3, E1, A1, E3, A3, E5, and A5; Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, and Business Premium; or SharePoint K, Plan 1, or Plan 2

If you’re unsure if you have access and would like us to take a look at how Viva might work for you, let us know here.

Hybrid work is here to stay: What’s next for hybrid work in 2022?

The last two years have seen major changes to the way that organisations operate. Employees transitioned from working in the office 5 days a week, to working remotely, and now many businesses have adopted a hybrid work model.

There are benefits and challenges associated with all of these models, however a hybrid workplace aims to leverage the benefits of remote work and office-based work. Many organisations have now implemented a long term hybrid work model to allow employees a better work-life balance whilst enabling more effective communication and collaboration. Instead of a temporary measure to manage pandemic restrictions, they see hybrid work as the future. As we move into 2022 more businesses are following suite, and as the model is refined the way employees work will also change.

Hybrid work in 2022

Below we discuss what the future of hybrid work looks like in 2022. 

More effective communication and collaboration

One of the key challenges of hybrid working is how employees can effectively communicate and collaborate if they are not working in the office at the same time. To solve this challenge, businesses use unified communication platforms. Microsoft Teams is one of the most feature rich unified communication platforms as it allows for both synchronous communication through voice calling and video calling, as well as asynchronous communicate through instant messaging and posting on channels. As well as the ability to easily communicate using Teams, the solution allows for effective collaboration as it seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft applications allowing real-time editing by multiple users. Microsoft continues to add features to Teams to enable more effective hybrid working.

Optimising the employee experience

The hybrid work model aims to create a better experience for employees by offering flexibility and improved employee wellbeing. However, as the model matures, it has become apparent that businesses must actively consider all aspects of the employee experience to effectively engage employees and realise these benefits. One way to optimise this is by implementing an employee experience platform, such as Microsoft Viva. Viva brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights in the flow of work. The solution is split into four modules that work together to empower employees to do the best for themselves and the wider company. The implementation of an employee experience platform ensures that businesses can make the most of the hybrid work model in 2022.

Hybrid meeting technologies

A unique challenge of hybrid working is how to run effective meetings whilst some attendees are physically in the meeting and others virtual. If the physical attendees are using a single laptop, this can create a poor experience for virtual attendees due to poor audio quality and depending on the number of physical attendees, it can be difficult to fit everyone on video. One solution is to fit a room with hybrid meeting audio visual technology, this may include omnidirectional microphones, a large screen to view virtual attendees and an external video conference camera. This will ensure that regardless of where employees are located, the meeting will be effective for all attendees. Microsoft has also introduced new features within Teams to improve the hybrid meeting experience, such as digital whiteboards and different video layouts to give a greater sense of connection.

Securing the hybrid workplace

Many organisations struggled to keep their IT systems and endpoints secure when they moved to remote working. Cybercriminals took advantage of this and unfortunately 2020 and 2021 saw thousands of businesses fall victim to cyberattacks. As more businesses move to a hybrid work model, it is essential that cybersecurity is built into their plans. 

Currently, the golden standard for security is the zero trust model.  This model assumes that there are malicious actors both inside and outside a network. Therefore, no users or machines are automatically trusted, and all requests must be authenticated and authorised. Verification is based on all data points, including user identity, device health, service or workload, classification and anomalies. This is ideal for hybrid work as it prevents most attacks, regardless of where an employee is located. However, for businesses that are not ready to completely overhaul their security model, many of the principles of zero trust can be applied in isolation to secure the hybrid workplace.

Long term hybrid work and your organisation

The move to long term hybrid work has many potential benefits, and throughout 2022, the model will be refined to ensure that all businesses and employees can work most effectively, regardless of where they are located. If you want to find out more about how technology can support your hybrid workplace, get in contact with us today.

Hybrid working: how technology can support your move to a hybrid workplace

The move to a hybrid workplace promises a myriad of benefits including increased collaboration, productivity and a better work-life balance. For this reason, it is no surprise that 91% of the global workforce expect to be working in some form of hybrid arrangement over the coming months. However, the hybrid workplace model will take some time to refine as there are many factors that must work together to support the changing workplace. One of the key factors that is integral to the long term success of hybrid working, is technology.

In the past 12 months most large technology companies have shifted their focus to adapting and creating technology that will suit hybrid working and provide a better experience for users, wherever they are working. 

In this article we identify key technologies to support your business’s move to a hybrid workplace.

Video conferencing with Microsoft Teams

Meetings with both physical and remote attendees are more complex than traditional meetings or virtual meetings. The key challenge is how to ensure that all attendees have the same experience, regardless of where they are located. Microsoft Teams aims to address these challenges with additional features such as the ‘Front Row’ along with changes to the user interface to increase productivity and collaboration in hybrid meetings. If you want to find out more about how to run an effective hybrid meeting read our recent blog.

Email protection

When employees moved from working in an office space to working from home there was a massive rise in phishing emails and phishing related cyberattacks. This trend will likely continue with the advent of hybrid work, with phishing being used as an attack vector to carry out ransomware attacks. User education and awareness is a key factor in avoiding a phishing attack, but it shouldn’t be the only line of defence. As businesses move to hybrid work, they should consider implementing a software defence to stop phishing attacks before they even enter an employee’s inbox. Mimecast uses AI to detect and quarantine any potential phishing attacks, keeping organisations safe from data breaches and ransomware attacks.

Work from anywhere with virtual desktops

Businesses that are trying to reduce hardware costs, or create more flexibility for employees, may have considered a Bring-Your-Own-PC (BYOPC) programme. A BYOPC programme seems ideal for hybrid working, however it poses a significant security risk as employees’ laptops may be infected with malware or may not have the same security policies as required by the business. This problem can be solved with virtual desktops through Azure Virtual Desktop and cloud PCs through Windows 365. These solutions allow users to connect to virtual desktops running on the Azure cloud. This gives the full Windows experience on any device, from any location with the security policies set up by the administrator. The recent release of Windows 365 has made it even easier for business to introduce cloud PCs to employees with simple per user per month pricing.

Employee experience platforms

The advent of remote and hybrid working can make it difficult for employees to stay connected with the wider business if not all employees work in the office on the same days. Similarly, many employees find it difficult to balance productivity and wellbeing whilst working from home. To solve these challenges, Microsoft has released Viva. Viva is an employee experience platform designed to foster an organisational culture where people and teams are empowered to be their best from anywhere. This solution contains modules to help employees stay connected to the wider business, increase productivity, organises content across the business and provide learning and development opportunities. The key to effective hybrid working is to focus on the employee experience, and Viva excels at this.

Phone call with Teams

For businesses that rely on telephone systems for day-to-day business, a traditional phone system may not be suitable for hybrid working. Transferring calls between an office and an employee’s home is difficult and can lead to a poor experience for customers. A cloud-based phone solution, such as Microsoft Business Voice, allows businesses to keep their existing phone numbers whilst allowing employees to make and answer calls from anywhere, on any device. Business Voice is also integrated with Teams, which means all calls, meetings, chats and files are housed in a single application. Moving to a cloud-based telephony solution is perfect for hybrid work and can reduce costs through streamlining technology.

Register for our next Microsoft Teams Business Voice Workshop here >

The move to hybrid marks a new era in the way the world views work. An effective hybrid work scheme can allow employees can be more productivity, have a better work-life balance and employers can potentially reduce overhead costs to increase profitability. For these benefits to be realised, technology will have to play a large part in supporting the new workplace.

4 ways to boost productivity with a hybrid work model

recent study found that 27% of employees would prefer to work remotely full time, and 62% would prefer to work in a hybrid arrangement. Many businesses have listened to employee feedback and have spent the last few months planning how a hybrid work model can be introduced.

The move to hybrid aims to offer all the benefits of working in the office and working from home, such as collaboration, ease of communication and a stronger organisational culture. The hybrid work model can also significantly increase productivity, leading to a better work-life balance and increased employee satisfaction.

Below are 4 ways to boost productivity when employees are hybrid working.

1: Learn how to run an effective hybrid meeting

After 18 months of online meetings, most employees have found an effective and productive way to run meetings. Starting to work from the office will require a change in the way meetings are run, especially when some members are in the office and others are working from home.

Two methods of running an effective hybrid meeting are having all members using Microsoft Teams, or office workers all using a single computer, talking to remote workers on Teams. The former enables the experience to be the same for all attendees and may be a better solution for some businesses. The latter can aid in collaboration, however it is important to ensure that remote workers are included and the audio and video equipment used are sufficient. It will take some time to adjust to the new method of meetings, but from trial and error businesses will find the most effective way to run hybrid meetings to increase productivity.

2: Stick to your hours both at work and at home

For some employees, whilst working from home they find it easier to close their laptop at the end of a day and finish on time, whereas others struggle to set clear boundaries between work time and home time. Similarly, some employees find it difficult to leave the office on time, especially when there is more work to do. Spending more time working may seem like it would increase the amount of work completed, however, in the long run this leads to a poor work-life balance and puts employees at the risk of burnout which will greatly decrease productivity.

It is important that regardless of where employees are working, they stick to their start and finish times. When working at home a way to ensure this is to set and alarm for when it is time to finish work, and turn off all work related notifications on mobile phones. In the office if there are multiple employees that finish at the same time colleagues should encourage each other to leave at the same time to ensure no one is forming an unhealthy habit of prioritising work over home life.

Workplace analytics can help identify employees who are regularly exceeding their working hours. Line managers can use this information to encourage them to switch off at a sensible time.

3: Minimise distractions

For many that have become acclimatised to working from home with few distractions, going back to the office may be difficult to manage the distractions. This can decrease productivity, make work more stressful and leave employees feeling less motivated. In the office a great way to decrease distractions is by setting aside time that will be focus time and let colleagues know that during these times you should not be disturbed. It is also beneficial to set aside time dedicated to checking and replying to emails, rather than replying to all emails as soon as they arrive.  

When working from home it is typically easier to avoid distractions, however having meetings too often can cause distractions that decrease productivity and can lead to an unhealthy work-life balance. In Microsoft MyAnalytics it is possible to view how much of a week is dedicated to meetings and automatically set times in your calendar that is dedicated to focusing without distractions.

4: Use the office for collaboration and keep up communication at home

One of the more common problems with working from home has around collaboration on projects. Even with collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, it’s still easier to do in person. For this reason, take advantage of working in an office for collaboration and tapping into other employees’ knowledge and skills to drive productivity and business growth.

Similarly, it is important to maintain communication when working from home and include those who may be remote only. One way to ensure this is to hold short meetings with all members of a department throughout the week to keep all employees in the loop. Effective communication increases productivity as it enables employees to better understand each other and increases morale.

As the workplace is fundamentally changing, employees and businesses need to consider what changes need to be made to ensure the move to a hybrid work model is seamless and productivity doesn’t suffer. If you want to find out more about hybrid working productivity, or how technology can be used to increase productivity, get in touch today!

Hybrid working: How the get the most out of Microsoft 365

With a return to the office in sight, the future of the workplace for many businesses will be a hybrid working model. Moving to a hybrid workplace can deliver the best of both worlds and has many benefits to productivity, employee wellbeing, and work-life balance. 

To facilitate this transition, it will be important to get the most out of your current Microsoft 365 subscription. Microsoft has all the collaboration, communication and productivity tools necessary for a successful move to hybrid working. However, the breadth of Microsoft’s product offering can make it difficult to know how to best use each app to support the move. 

Here, we have compiled a few tips on how to get the most out of Microsoft Apps as you move to a hybrid workplace.

Your Microsoft 365 hybrid workplace

SharePoint

In a hybrid workplace, one of the most important considerations will be how to have a seamless work experience, no matter where you are working. SharePoint is a tool that allows access to all organisational files that can be edited and collaborated on no matter where you are located or what device is being used. This means that whether an employee is at home, in the office or on the train, they will be able to collaborate with their colleagues on shared documents.

SharePoint is also a perfect tool as a repository of organisation wide data that can be accessed from anywhere. This may include templates, forms, procedures and business data. Having it all in a single place makes it easy for employees to find the documents they need, regardless of whether they are in the office or at home.

Planner

When working both remotely and in the office, it can be difficult to manage all tasks that need to be completed in a team. This is even more tricky if email is the primary tool of communication and planning, as it is easy to lose a request in a sea of emails. In Microsoft Planner you can create a plan, add individual tasks to the plan and assign these tasks to members of your team. Tasks can also be synced from emails so your team spends less time searching and more time doing. To help the move to hybrid working these plans can be accessed and completed on any device, anywhere. Microsoft Planner can also be integrated with Teams and all other Microsoft 365 applications to keep all communication, collaboration, and productivity in one place.

Whiteboard

One of the best methods for brainstorming and collaborating in meetings is a good old-fashioned whiteboard. With both hybrid and remote working this was more difficult, however with Microsoft Whiteboard, multiple users can collaborate on a virtual whiteboard from a variety of devices. The whiteboard can also be added to a Teams meeting to collaborate in real time with colleagues for brainstorming, project planning or to explain a concept.

Yammer

Yammer is an organisation-wide social platform built for enterprise communication. Yammer is easy to set up and fosters a culture of transparency, connection and open communication. With a move to a hybrid workplace model Yammer is a fantastic tool to stay up to date with what is happening within a company, both from a strategy and personal viewpoint. Yammer also offers employees the opportunity to ask questions to a wider company audience, increasing productivity and communication. Yammer also allows members of an organisation that would not normally interact a chance to meet those in other teams to make a business feel more connected.

To make the move to a hybrid workplace seamless experience a business should make the most of their existing Microsoft 365 subscription. Hybrid working may not be possible for all businesses or industries, but for those that can work in the office and remotely there will be a myriad of benefits. 

If you want to find out more on how to make the most out of your Microsoft 365 subscription, get in touch today.

How to make the hybrid working work effectively for your organisation

recent study has shown that 73% of employees want flexible work options to continue once restrictions ease, and 67% are craving more in-person time with their teams. This combination of statistics show that business leaders would be wise to listen to employees and start planning for a hybrid work model.  

A move to a hybrid workplace has many of the benefits of both remote working and a full-time return to the office. However, this decision should not be taken lightly as there are many factors that must be considered to ensure that a hybrid work environment is effective and sets employees up for success.

Hybrid work needs to focus on employee wellbeing

One of the key considerations for an effective hybrid workplace strategy is a focus on employee wellbeing. If managed correctly a flexible hybrid working model should increase employee wellbeing through better work-life balance, reduce commuting time and costs and increase motivation and communication.

Although there are potentially many wellbeing benefits of hybrid working, business leaders must consider for some employees it will be a difficult adjustment period as many employees will not have been in the office for over a year. A sudden change to their place of work may be stressful and tiring due to a return to commuting, significantly more social contact, and the challenges of a new work-life balance. For business leaders, the best way to manage employee wellbeing is through communication and flexibility. Employees should be involved in the decision of when and how a return to the office will work and specific concerns and anxieties should be addressed.

Leverage technology for collaboration and communication

Technology has played a pivotal role in the move to remote working and will continue to if hybrid working is implemented. The difference will be that technology will have to support a seamless experience regardless of where employees are working. 

From a hardware perspective this may be using a laptop with a dock in the office so employees can easily transport their device between work and home and not have to unplug cables each time. From a software perspective it is important to utilise communication and collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams to their full ability. This is especially important if there are employees working in the same team but in the office on different days to ensure they do not feel disconnected from the rest of the team. It is also important to provide training and support with hybrid working technology as all employees will rely heavily on these features to enable productivity in the workplace.

Don’t forget security

In March 2020, when the first lockdown was announced, the move to remote work was abrupt and this led to poor security procedures for many companies. Cybercriminals took advantage of this, with cyber crime increasing by 72% in the first month of lockdown. 

After a year of working from home most organisations have implemented security policies and procedures to ensure that employees are working securely on their own networks. As there is more time to plan a hybrid workplace, security needs to be considered from the start. This may include deploying multi-factor authentication, Azure Virtual Desktops (previously Windows Virtual Desktop) and centralising data so employees stay secure and productive, regardless of where they are working.

It won’t be perfect straight away

Business leaders need to be thoughtful with their implementation of a hybrid work model and consider the research as well as employees’ opinions to form a comprehensive framework to set everyone up for success. That said, just as remote work was a new experience for many over a year ago, hybrid work will be the same, and there will be an adjustment period and issues that require the model to be adjusted to suit each company and individual. Although this adjustment period may be not ideal, business leaders should regularly review and optimise their hybrid work environment to ensure it works effectively for all employees.

The move from remote working to hybrid working, if managed correctly, has a plethora of benefits and can be the best of both worlds for employees and business leaders alike. If you want to find out more on how to optimise your hybrid workplace model or manage your IT and technology strategy to suit hybrid working – get in touch today!

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How the Microsoft Productivity Score can boost productivity and collaboration

Most of the nation has now been working from home for over a year. As employees were forced to adjust to the new normal, initially the balance of home-schooling, baking bread, and constant online meetings was hard to manage. A year on, and many employees now prefer remote working. Not having to commute, and saving money, the extra time in the day, and being more productive are common reasons people want to continue working from home. When it comes to productivity, two thirds of workers claim they are more productive when WFH. 

Business leaders are currently in discussion as to what the future of the workplace looks like when restrictions ease. For some, this may be going back to the office 5 days a week, but many businesses are considering continuing to work remotely, or in a hybrid arrangement. Whatever your organisation decides is best, it is important to consider the productivity pros and cons for all working locations and how to quantify this productivity. 

Productivity pros and cons of working from home

One of the key productivity benefits of remote working is the lack of distractions. It is often easier to have a quiet space to remain focused, whereas in the office there are distractions from conversations with colleagues and the hustle and bustle of a busy office. Remote working also opens up the possibility of flexible work hours. If employers allow workers to start and finish when it suits them it means that employees can choose to work the hours they are most productive. Similarly, working remotely improves the work-life balance for many employees. With less time spent commuting it allows more time for activities with friends and family. This work-life balance improvement can also increase productivity through greater employee satisfaction and wellbeing.

A potential negative consequence of remote working is a lack of communication and collaboration within departments. When working in an office it is easy to approach a colleague to have a discussion or ask a question, whereas whilst many remote employees are forced to rely on emails, instant messaging and video calls which can be difficult to organise, leading to poor communication. Microsoft Teams has all the tools necessary for effective communication, but it is up to the individual employee to utilise these tools for communication and collaboration. 

Some employees also struggle with loneliness and staying motivated whilst remote working which can decrease productivity and employee wellbeing. When working from home it is important to maintain interaction within a team, both from a professional and social standpoint. There are also management concerns with remote working productivity. In an office space it is easier to physically observe productivity in a team, however this has previously been difficult to monitor when working remotely. Microsoft aims to solve this issue with their Microsoft Productivity Score.  

How does Microsoft Productivity Score work?

The Microsoft Productivity Score provides metrics, insights to help improve productivity and satisfaction, and recommended actions to use Microsoft 365 more effectively. These metrics, insights and recommendations are split into two areas: people experiences and technology experiences. 

  1. People experiences include content collaboration, mobility, communication, meetings, and teamwork. 
  2. Technology experiences show if the technology is being used to its full ability and the overall health of the organisation’s technology. 

For people experience data, you need a Microsoft 365 for Business subscription. For technology experiences, you require a Microsoft Intune subscription. The productivity score shows the your organisation’s score and compares it with peer benchmarks of similar sized organisations in a specific region. This data can then be used to track productivity over time and give recommendations to improve productivity, use of technology and employee satisfaction and wellbeing.

Is the Microsoft Productivity Score a workplace surveillance tool?

When the feature was launched in May 2020, Microsoft came into some criticism from privacy campaigners calling the Microsoft Productivity Score “full-fledged workplace surveillance tool”. Why the tool does allow admins to drill down on the activity of individual users, Microsoft assures critics that this is not the purpose of the score.

“We are committed to privacy as a fundamental element of productivity score,” wrote Jared Spataro, the corporate vice-president for Microsoft 365, in online documentation. “Let me be clear: productivity score is not a work monitoring tool. Productivity score is about discovering new ways of working, providing your people with great collaboration and technology experiences … For example, to help maintain privacy and trust, the user data provided in productivity score is aggregated over a 28-day period.”

Instead, IT teams can use the data to make the most of their technology investments by addressing common pain points like long boot times, inefficient document collaboration, or poor network connectivity; and to support user adoption.

Get the most out of Microsoft 365

For many employees remote working has been a positive experience with an increase in productivity and a better work-life balance. Regardless of whether businesses are planning to continue remote working or change to a hybrid arrangement when restrictions ease, it is important for employers to consider the difficulties of remote working and support employees to overcome these difficulties. 

A great place to start is by using Microsoft Productivity Score as it gives insights and recommendations to improve productivity and utilise Microsoft 365 apps to their full ability. If you want to find out more on how Microsoft Productivity Score can help with remote working productivity get in touch today!

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Microsoft Teams for Unified Communications

Microsoft Teams recently hit the milestone of 145 million active users, with much of the focus being on its ability to power effective remote collaboration. Teams, however, can be considered to have another dimension: its unified messaging (UM) technology.

Teams brings individual and group messaging, video calling, conferencing, and enterprise telephony together. For many businesses, it has proven incredibly effective, with some of the world’s largest corporations jumping on board.

“Customers like GM and Sanofi are using Teams for unified communications including for voice,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella informed investors in Microsoft’s latest earnings call.

Download our ebook on cloud-based telephony for more information about Microsoft Teams Voice >

While Teams may feel to some like a rebrand of Skype for Business or even Lync, Microsoft has emphasised that Teams uses little Skype for Business code. Indeed, its unified communications functionality has been almost completely modernised and re-written. Crucially, Teams is a fully cloud-based solution, forgoing the on-premises deployments offered by its predecessors and offering new benefits as a result.

What makes Teams a great Unified Communications solution?

By integrating many of their existing apps and solutions into Teams, companies simplify the entire communications process. Rather than jump between various apps, employees can communicate with multiple stakeholders, across multiple channels, in the same place they access their files, meeting notes, and document collaboration tools. Further integration with existing SharePoint and Office 365 Group capabilities makes Teams a strong pick for many businesses as they move towards a hybrid work model.

In fact, it has quickly become clear that employees in can be far more effective with this unified messaging framework in place. A Forrester study revealed that 88% of IT decision makers believe Teams’ ability to provide all their solutions in one place saves time. 80% said that it created more clarity when it came to communication, with information workers on average saving four hours a week because of this and one hour due to reduced app switching.

Utilising Microsoft Teams for UC also helps organisations reduce downtime and save costs. Housing all resources in a single cloud-based location enables lower complexity fewer issues when compared to on-premises solutions. This ultimately leads to lowered training costs and reduced productivity loss due to outages.

Unified messaging in Teams also tends to reduce licensing costs and instances of shadow IT. As employees become acclimatised to a universal communications system, they’re less likely to reach out through traditional calls, third-party software, or alternate messaging apps. This not only increases security, but allows some to phase out on-premises deployments and legacy telephony entirely. The result for the business is a more predictable budget, for employees significantly more flexibility.

Balancing communication and collaboration

Though many enterprises choose to use Microsoft Teams as a “one size fits all” tool for unified communications and collaboration, it’s worth considering the two aspects independently when adopting. While the benefits of housing both under one roof can be huge, there are differing requirements when it comes to data storage and access.

For example, phase one might be a partial deployment of Teams, using Teams solely for unified messaging and telephony and retaining existing storage and collaboration solutions. Phase two would be to transition to Teams for file sharing, where appropriate. Considering these options when it comes to deployment can help an enterprise capitalise on the benefits of Teams’ UC far faster.

If you’d like to chat about unified communications in Teams and the best deployment strategy for you, get in touch. We can help you leverage its benefits in a streamlined, cost-effective way. 

5 ways to reduce your digital carbon footprint at work

Remote work has had a positive impact on many people’s personal carbon footprints over the last year. No commute and less business travel has made us all greener. But what about your digital carbon footprint when working remotely?

The digital workplace is not carbon neutral. Transferring data online requires energy and with internet usage having increased dramatically since March 2020, our global energy demands mean that while remote working may be greener, there is still a carbon cost.

A new study, from Purdue, Yale and MIT, attempted to analyse the carbon costs on the connectivity and data infrastructure that makes remote working possible. They found that activities like video conferencing or streaming can produce up to 1000 grams of carbon dioxide an hour. The amount produced differs depending on the video quality,  HD video streaming produces up to 440g, video conferencing on Microsoft Teams or Zoom 160g – watching YouTube videos produces 1000g.

Compared to driving to a meeting where a car can produce 8887g of carbon dioxide per gallon of fuel, your Teams meeting is still likely to be a greener alternative; but there are things you could do to reduce your carbon footprint further.

5 steps to reduce your digital carbon footprint

1. Turn your web camera off

Video conferencing has been a very important factor in promoting workplace collaboration and communication during the last 12 months. We would not advocate turning your camera off for all interactions as there are so many benefits to seeing your colleagues’ and customers’ faces, at least for a short time!

But you don’t need to have your camera on all the time. For example, if you’re in a meeting where you’re not actively participating turn your camera off until you take the floor. Or if you’ve already had a video chat with a colleague today, perhaps your next catch up could be without cameras.

2. Reduce video streaming quality

Another way to reduce your carbon footprint is to reduce the quality when streaming videos. Do you really need to watch an on demand webinar in HD on your laptop? Switching from HD to SD can save up to 90% of the energy used to transmit, and ensure there’s more bandwidth available for other people working remotely from your home. Downloading video content to watch on your device also reduces energy use compared to streaming.

3. Manage your emails better

If your inbox is full of emails that are not needed, spend some time deleting them. Data storage requires energy so the fewer unnecessary emails being stored, the lower your carbon footprint. Try to get into good habits like deleting spam immediately and cleaning up your inbox at the end of the day.

Prevent others from adding to your carbon footprint by unsubscribing from marketing emails you’re not interested in. And make a point of asking people to remove you from their lists if you’re receiving unsolicited emails from other businesses. You can even tell them it’s for environmental reasons and perhaps encourage them to adopt greener habits too.

4. Switch off devices, printers and other accessories

If you’re not using a device, switch it off! Lots of people routinely have printers switched on even when they rarely print anything. Even when a device is in sleep mode it’s using energy, so at the end of the working day power down corporate laptops and other devices.

5. Manage your browser more efficiently

From ad pop ups, autoplay on video, to searches and multi-tabs, your internet browser is often using unnecessary energy. Start off by putting some controls in place like blocking pop-up ads and turning off autoplay on videos. Then think before you search in Bing or Google. Is the website you want already in your search history? In which case find it there. Also bookmark regularly visited websites so you don’t need to search, and close unwanted tabs.

Many of the ideas above will also improve the performance of your devices as the less data being transmitted between your device and the cloud, the more bandwidth is available for you to work.

The good news is that remote work and cloud computing is helping many people and organisations reduce their carbon footprint. Simple housekeeping and developing good habits and help you reduce it further.

The importance of Microsoft Teams call recording for regulated industries

When you think of call recording, you might think of a robot telling you that everything you say will be recorded for training purposes. For some, it’s an annoyance, but most likely don’t think twice. However, for those employees working in call centres, financial, or legal services, call recording is essential. Call recording helps improve staff training and the customer experience but, most importantly, it’s integral to security and compliance.

Over the past year, many industries have adopted Microsoft Teams to transform remote communications and stay resilient through the pandemic. But did you know that you can also use Teams for seamless and fully compliant customer and client calls.

Call recording solutions plug straight into your existing Microsoft Teams set-up to provide MiFID II and FCA compliant communications. As well as providing storage, they allow for secure retrieval, searching, and monitoring across voice, video, screen sharing, conferencing, and chat.

To explore the best Teams call recording solutions for your organisation, book a discovery call with our team to discuss your requirements >

How Teams call recording can support regulated industries

Three industries in particular stand to benefit from recording all interactions across the Teams platform. They are:

1. Contact centres

It is vital that contact centres within businesses remain compliant and secure to the highest standards. Call recording can help to improve response times and professional conduct, while reducing disruption. Call recording solutions offer features such as:

  • Secure availability of call recording to resolve customer disputes
  • Simple, automatic recording for training and review purposes
  • Multiple types of resilience to ensure recording is not interrupted in the event of a server outage
  • An agent dashboard to aid in the effective management of calls and customer details
  • A dedicated supervisor dashboard for managers. Managers can keep track of agent activity across the entire contact centre and provide customisable reports to help them increase their productivity
  • Wallboards to provide vital information like calls answered, wait times, answering times, and abandoned call stats in real-time

2. Financial services

Financial services companies are bound by strict legal requirements, with many required to record their calls by law. Microsoft Teams call recording solutions provide:

  • Automatic, MiFID II and FCA compliant call recording to meet standards without affecting productivity
  • Monitoring of and secure access to historic calls to aid in the discovery of market abuse and insider trading
  • Recording across all of your Teams communications – including voice, messaging, video calls and more to meet requirements

3. Legal firms

While for many industries the main focus of call recording is compliance, in the legal sector it’s all about information protection and complaints resolution. There are several ways call recording inside Teams can help with this:

  • Reduced reliance on notetaking with automatic, full recordings of conversations.
  • Archives allow team members to access the full information at any time to resolve any confusion in notetaking, while employees can focus on the client rather than a notebook.
  • A database of complete text, video, and audio conversations with clients helps to address complaints in an industry where they’re incredibly common. Seamless access to recording allows for timely fact-checking and liability minimisation, ultimately saving money.

As the Covid-19 forces many companies to change the way they work, solutions that integrate with communications hubs like Microsoft Teams can close the compliance gap without impacting productivity. However, the right solution should be more than just a recorder.

It’s important that your call recordings meet your specific requirements and that they are stored intuitively and securely. If you’re still unsure whether or not call recording is for you, get in touch with us for an honest assessment.

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Choosing the right Microsoft 365 subscription for your non-profit

As software companies look to penetrate new markets, the breadth of solutions targeted at non-profits has increased substantially. Aware that charities face a high degree of budgetary scrutiny, software providers offer generous pricing models and customisations to suit non-profit organisations. When combined with government funding that is increasingly available, now is a great time to adopt technologies to enhance productivity.

Microsoft 365 is a key solution that non-profits are embracing. With the shift to remote work, organisations are seeing large communication improvements thanks to Microsoft’s suite. With tools like Microsoft Teams offering real-time, remote collaboration, non-profit employees are able to easily plan fundraising efforts, hold virtual meetings, and host live informational events.

Microsoft makes this possible through numerous charity-specific SKUs designed to improve operations and IT. However, in this lies a conundrum: how do you choose the right 365 subscription plan for your organisation when there are so many available?

Book a discovery call with one of our 365 experts, and we’ll take you through the options available >

365 subscriptions explained

First and foremost, choosing the right Microsoft 365 subscription requires an understanding of the benefits they provide. Only then, and with a deep understanding of your organisation’s needs, can you ensure your budget is spent in the best way.

Microsoft Business Basic, Standard, E3, and E5

The first thing to know is that Microsoft’s non-profit subscriptions, like its enterprise offerings, are tiered. As you’d expect, each jump in price offers access to more apps and features, with some key differences to be aware of.

For many small non-profits, the free Microsoft 365 Business Basic offering will be attractive. Charities who meet the requirements will gain access to Exchange email services, 1 TB of OneDrive storage, and video and chat services via Microsoft Teams.

It’s worth noting, however, that the Business Basic plan does not provide access to Microsoft’s suite of productivity apps, Office 365. Non-profits won’t be able to take full advantage of the real-time collaboration SharePoint offers, nor will they gain access to the powerful productivity features of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. This is primarily for organisations with workers who are primarily frontline, or those who have an existing productivity solution in place.

For those who do need the apps within Office 365, a paid subscription is the only option. All paid non-profit subscriptions include the suite, with the cheapest being Business Standard, which additionally provides the services of Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams from the basic tier. At £2.30 per user/month, it’s a no-brainer for most non-profits with under 300 employees.

Larger non-profits will need to consider an Office 365 enterprise plan to get past that 300-user limit. Office 365 E1 is the free tier, providing the same services as the Business Basic Plan, but for unlimited users and with additional compliance and auditing tools. E1 users can run virtual meetings for up to 10,000 participants and access 50GB per user of business-class email, calendar, and contacts storage.

Microsoft 365 E3 comprises the same apps and services as the Business Standard plan but comes with some notable additions. As well as removing the 300-person limit, it bundles in 100GB per user of email storage, additional OneNote features, and unlimited personal cloud storage. It also provides IT departments with apps to manage software and information while providing data loss and rights management tools for email. Finally, organisations can make use of self-service business intelligence to visualise and analyse data with Excel. This all comes in at a respectable £4 per user/month rather than the £17.60 a commercial business pays.

Finally, there’s Microsoft 365 E5. It’s more than double the price of E3, and that’s because it ties in a ton of extra functionality. As well as everything from the previous tiers, it throws in various analytics tools to power data-driven decision making. eDiscovery enables predictive text and coding analytics, while Power BI and Microsoft MyAnalytics provide personal and organisational insights.

This alone makes E5 a wise choice for large non-profits, but it also brings significant upgrades to a company’s communications and security infrastructure. For £12.30 per employee/month, organisations can:

  • Join audio conferences in Microsoft Teams via landline or mobile phone
  • Make use of a cloud-based call management system to make, transfer, and receive calls from a wide range of devices.
  • Be better protected via Microsoft’s advanced security offering, which automatically protects against zero-day malware and virus threats while better safeguarding messaging systems.

Microsoft 365 has a plan for any type of non-profit, and we’ve covered the basics of them in this blog to help you understand what’s available. If you’re still not sure what subscription plan is right for your business, give us a call. We’ll give you a detailed rundown of which is best suited to your non-profit and how you can get the most for your budget.

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Digital transformation winners in the financial services sector

When the pandemic hit and the UK abruptly plunged into its first lockdown, many employees were left struggling with a whole range of issues; a major one being technology. Virtually overnight, employees across the world became completely reliant on whether or not their firms had already begun a digital transformation. For some, particularly in the financial services sector, there was a seamless transition to remote working. For others, less so.

The winners were those who had taken early spending decisions to invest and whose company-wide adoption of tech was already underway, or close to completion. According to ft.com, giants KPMG, PwC, EY, Deloitte UK and BDO were piloting tech tools (such as Microsoft Teams) before Covid-19 forced such a major change in working patterns. But, as the CFO of BDO, Stuart Collins, pointed out, “widespread adoption might normally have taken some time”. The pandemic vastly altered the pace of that adoption, with KPMG able to move 18,000 people in its UK and global centres on to the Teams app “overnight”, and BDO integrating the software into working life to such an extent that Mr Collins now says: “It’s hard to remember life without it”.

Ready to get more from Teams? Download our eBook exploring cloud-based calling here >

In the case of early digital investors, the role of the CFO appears to have been pivotal. As businesses increase spend on cloud based and SaaS technology, the buy-in of those in charge of financial strategy and decision-making is imperative. Being IT ready when the pandemic arrived, or at least part-way down that path, was a vindication of their early spending across a broad range of technologies and has left many CFOs fully committed to further investment; which will be music to the ears of Chief IT Officers.

Security and compliance for financial services firms

For those in the financial and professional services industry who were less well prepared, or perhaps less willing to spend their limited budget on IT, the significance of that decision to their business and its employees has been a lesson hard learnt. The ability of tech to innovate operations and improve both customer experience and employee happiness, even without an excessive spend, has been realised by many firms. The key is flexible thinking, planning ahead and being prepared to invest sensibly in a digital transformation.

The good news is that not everything comes with a substantial price tag and for smaller businesses serious about undergoing a digital renovation, there is a wide – and ever-growing – selection of solutions. Tools like Microsoft Teams, offering compliant calling and collaboration, and DocuSign, allowing electronic signatures, are eminently helpful to the financial and PS sectors and come with excellent security features to help keep businesses safe whilst working remotely or office based. “Digitalisation also makes it easier for firms to meet regulatory demands, such as record-keeping, cyber security and data compliance,” says Richard Houghton, CFO at Openwork, and “digital back-up, servicing and customer access” are becoming a basic requirement (ft.com). It really is a win-win in terms of the investment.

The speed of digital transformation is accelerating, for companies of all sizes, with the pandemic challenging the view of its importance and placing it squarely at the centre of current and future strategic plans. For customers too, their use of tech has rapidly changed, as has their comfort with it and their expectations of it.

If your financial services or PS firm is looking to meet that challenge and aims to transform or enhance their technologies, we can offer some quick advice on the solutions best suited to them and the sector.

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