Should I get Microfoft365 for my business?

Short Answer: Probably Not.

A lot of companies are signing up to Microsoft365 (formerly Office365) without really knowing what they are getting or if its even good for their business.

Thanks to some slick sales pitches sometimes businesses are just signing up to more expenses without really contributing to their productivity.

Microsoft is making more effort in attracting customers to counter  the uptake by businesses signing up to the GSuite tools.

But is it worth it?

Some Pros for using Microsoft365

1. Seamless team collaboration

For many businesses, being able to collaborate with in-house departments and employees, and third party individuals is an important factor.

The multi-collaboration feature also helps to save time as you don’t have to wait for other people to finish working on the piece before you can make your edits.

2. Regular, automatic updates

MS 365 regularly pushes out automatic updates. This relieves the burden placed on your IT staff, freeing up some of their time so they can be productive elsewhere and allows you to continue working without being held back by slow, outdated software.

3. Data Loss Prevention

A feature that allows businesses to monitor, regulate and protect sensitive business data.

Cons for using Microsoft365

Almost everything above can be achieved with normal hosted email using IMAP.  With the exception of full collaboration hosted email does all that MS365 does.    You get automatic updates for security and webmail is available too.  Data is store online and assuming you are using a reputable hosting company All data is backed up regularly.

Collaboration allows users to share documents, Calendars and Appointments but all of these can be done using cheaper alternatives.

For smaller companies a Hosted Service does all that you need.

IE: if you are hosting a website then all your emails are included in the price so why then do you need to pay extra to have MS365.

Conclusion

This all may sound like we are not fans of Microsoft 365, and we aren’t really but that doesn’t mean its not a Tool that can help your business and employees.

However just be sure you are using the service for the right reasons.

For businesses with less than 10 emails it probably isn’t something that is worth the extra expense.   However larger businesses with 20+ emails some of the features if used to your advantage can make Microsoft 365 tool you need.