Microsoft Office 365 for Business is a business management system comprising of a number of different productivity tools and apps, including Windows 10, Office 365, together with the Enterprise Mobility and Security packages.
Office 365 programs together with the plan’s low monthly fee and advanced security features, are especially created to allow you to be productive from any point of the world, secure your business to the highest level, be cost-effective and get your own custom solution for your business needs.
That and many more factors are the reason why the software dominates the market and is by far the most popular among businesses.
Here are the key benefits of using Office 365 for business and how it can help you and your team to become more efficient.

Access Your Files Anytime, Anywhere
With the advancement in technology and current world events, the stigma around remote work has lifted and it has now become a natural solution for many employers and employees.
The biggest advantage of Office 365 is the ability to work and collaborate with your colleagues from anywhere and on any device. The software operates on a cloud based platform, therefore all your valuable data is accessible within seconds, as long as you have a reliable internet connection.
Users can read and send emails, share documents, host meetings and much more from multiple locations both through the mobile apps or a browser by using a mobile phone, tablet, work or a personal laptop.
Keep Your Information Safe on a Secure Cloud Storage
If your job includes the use of a laptop, then it is certain that you need space to store all your important information. You can stop cluttering your device with old, unnecessary files and forget about travelling with additional hardware because another key benefit of Office 365 is the secure cloud storage it provides.
The Microsoft 365 for business lets you store up to 1 TB per user on the cloud and the maximum size of a file can reach up to 100 GB.
You can back up and protect company information on the cloud for data loss prevention. The mobile device management system helps you keep your company’s data safe by enabling you to restrict access to stolen or lost devices.
Users have a variety of options for sharing documents and files with other employees. You can use the so-called “Personal Vault” to store your most sensitive information.
Improved Communication
Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business are the apps from Office 365 that offer the ability to communicate your ideas effectively with both on-site and remote employees. Numerous options are available such as conference calls, shared screens, instant messaging, adding comments to files and many more.
A study by Forrester shows that these improvements saved 1 hour per worker per week, which for a company with 70 employees will potentially turn into 3,500 additional working hours for just one year.
In addition, Microsoft Outlook and Yammer – Microsoft’s Social Network, also help co-workers over the world by facilitating the management of schedules, activities and tasks, making communication easier.

Making Your Budget a Predictable Spend
Another one of the benefits of Office 365 comes from a cash flow perspective. The service is subscription-based, which means you can get a license for a business plan for up to 300 people and only pay a monthly fee for the actual users.
You don’t have to invest in new software and pay a large lump sum. This is a predictable expanse and the number is the same every month. In addition, updating to the latest version is included in the subscription fee and happens automatically.
This offers relief to your finance department as it will help them make a more accurate yearly budget.
Business Continuity – Identifying Threats and Avoiding Them
Business continuity refers to the ability and planning to deal with business disruptions.
Microsoft 365’s admin centre offers a Business continuity report which relies on a machine learning model. It helps you identify potential threats to your working process and the consequences they might have on your activities.
Some of the key analytics include adaptation to remote work processes, work-life balance, working after-hours, meeting length and number of attendees, effective information sharing and community interactions.
The report can help you make a plan and prevent employee burnout, improve communication, promote faster decision-making and give precise feedback.
In case of on-site disruptions such as a flood or power outage, your work will be able to continue thanks to the cloud-based software, which prevents the possibility of your work to come to a halt.
As long as you have Internet connectivity you can still make an exchange online and use software such as Word, Excel, Skype, Outlook and more. This means you will always have access to your most important documents, contacts, emails as well as the resilience Office 365 has to protect your data.
Automatic Upgrades and Compatible Files
The good news is that with the subscription-based model, you automatically get each update with the latest versions and security measures Microsoft offers. Automatic upgrades come at no additional cost, validating your predictable spend.
Furthermore, with automatic updates, you avoid compatibility issues because all users will have the most current versions of the applications.
Centralised Collaboration
Microsoft Teams is the teamwork hub in the package. It brings all apps, calendars, emails, meetings and chats together.
Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Online offer centralized, clean and neat workspace, therefore you can forget about keeping track of multiple copies of the same document. The collaboration
features enable multiple teams to simultaneously edit and work on a file that is automatically updated.
The improved information sharing process makes reviewing documents and working on common projects much easier.

Subscription-Based Model for Scalable Business Growth
As mentioned above, Microsoft uses a subscription-based service for Business Office 365. You can choose from Basic, Standard or Premium services. This allows businesses that have seasonal demands to plan ahead and cancel or add more subscriptions to their licenses.
Similarly, it is beneficial to quickly growing businesses, which need to add users or expand storage without facing performance or speed issues. The possibility to mix and match plans is also a valuable option for expanding organizations.
In turn, these result in cost-effective solutions for individual business demands.
Streamlined Business Collaboration
Since remote work becomes more and more popular, people start experiencing troubles with the absence of face-to-face collaboration. The modern solution offered by Microsoft is called Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Teams includes channels that you can create with different people on various topics or departments. You can chat, call and video call your colleagues, hold meetings and share files, which can be edited in real-time by multiple people.
All of the above make the application very user-friendly and facilitate work between large teams. Teams’ easy use of access and its many options provide a stable baseline for streamlined business collaboration.
Simplified Virtual Communication
Microsoft Teams offers businesses the ability to host online meetings and video calls for up to 300 people which puts an end to message explaining. You can chat with team members on the go and bring together all the chats, shared files, calendars, meetings and apps so you can easily collaborate.
Creating virtual events is made easy and includes team meetings, webinars, virtual conferences, leadership town halls and public broadcasts.
Other applications such as Sway, Yammer, SharePoint and Skype for Business were also created with the primary goal of making easy and effective communication possible.
Reduced Software Expenses
Considering Microsoft takes care of the software issues and updates instead of you, you can direct the IT force towards other tasks that can help the company’s overall productivity. Microsoft 365 allows saving on automation, IT costs, security risks and makes setting up a new account easy.
Statistics indicate that interviewed companies have altogether saved not only on software expenses related to online conferences, phone apps and support costs but also on on-premises technology like expensive hardware.

Advanced Security Features
Microsoft Office meets all the international and related industry security standards. It helps you defend against cyber threats, secure your devices, secure customer data and manage users and devices.
The built-in security features include Exchange Online Protection, custom permissions and password policies that the user can individually create. In addition to those, there are some advanced security features for the business premium users.
The integrated multi-factor authentication (MFA) requires a user’s password additional verification, such as a text message sent to your mobile, a phone call or The Microsoft Authenticator smartphone app.
From the Admin panel, you can control Office 365. You are able to have advanced security and manage device security policies. Device security policies are created to prevent unauthorized access to your company information. These can be applied to any of your employees’ mobile devices.
With Information Rights Management you can control who can copy and forward files and information from the system to other locations and apps. You can delete data from stolen devices or remove users.
Microsoft Defender uses Exchange Online Protection (EOP) which is a cloud-based filtering service. It protects you from malicious attachments, emails, viruses, spyware, ransomware and other malware attempts. Its advanced threat analytics allows you to investigate malicious links or activities that put your organization at risk.
With Exchange Online Archiving you can protect all your data which will be stored in an unlimited cloud archive.
Intune and Azure Information Protection systems are included in the Microsoft 365 Premium subscription. These services provide added security and mobile device management.

The Top Office 365 Email Benefits
Office 365 offers you a 50 GB mailbox email hosting with the possibility of using your own domain name.
It is available in desktop versions and can also be used on the web. Besides all the options related to calendars, meetings, schedules and reminders, you can also set up new or restore deleted accounts and create custom scripts.
What’s more, you can migrate email or files from other providers and create shared mailboxes so people can send emails from a single account.
Azure provides an integrated message encryption system so you can confidently send sensitive information, such as client or employee data, product information, legal contracts and be sure the content will be viewed only by the intended recipient. Besides the rights management templates, you can use the Encrypt-Only or the Do Not Forward options.
Substantial File Storage and Sharing Capabilities
With the business plan, you will have 1 TB of OneDrive file storage, accessible from all your mobile devices. You can share your files securely with only those who have permissions, share direct access or send a guest link.
In SharePoint, you can create different types of groups, such as team sites (projects, departments) or communication sites (topics, entire organizations). It provides an online workplace where you can safely share updates, co-author documents and manage business processes.

Business Intelligence – Analyze and Plan Ahead
The different programs and tools will help you work intelligently, save time and see progress quickly.
With programs such as Microsoft Lists, Teams, Bookings and Forms you can stay on top of all your most important work, update schedules and keep track of your daily tasks, increase customer satisfaction and get their feedback on your services by creating surveys. Business analytics, data mining and visualization are combined in Microsoft 365’s analytics tools – MyAnalytics and Workplace Analytics. They allow you to track how you and other employees spend time at work and give you information on factors that impact engagement, productivity and effectiveness.