Skype for Business will soon be integrated into Microsoft Office Teams, creating a single collaboration platform. What does that mean for your business? By incorporating Skype for Business’ features, Microsoft Teams can become an even more comprehensive, collaborative environment. A Microsoft Teams upgrade can give your organization everything it needs to facilitate fast, effective communication.

The Problem with Most Collaboration Software

Think about the collaborative tools you have available now. What features do you feel your organization is currently missing? How many tools are you using to get the features that you need? Most collaborative software systems don't have everything a business needs in a single box. Instead, you need to create a Frankenstein's monster hodgepodge of disparate systems.

That introduces a lot of problems. Consider an organization in which chat is being done through Slack, meetings are being done through GoToMeeting, and calls are being handled through a separate VoIP solution.

Managing all of these new technologies is costly from an IT perspective. IT teams have to constantly upgrade and troubleshoot these systems, ensuring that they remain well-integrated and -- above all -- well-protected. Every additional system you use is another security vulnerability waiting to occur. It's also another resource that your employees have to manage.

The loss of productivity here cannot be over-emphasized: having to switch between multiple applications continuously can complicate everything an employee has to do. Having multiple collaboration platforms also creates a lot of redundancy and confusion, as many of these solutions have features, such as a chat, that overlap with one another.

Why Microsoft Office Teams is Different

With the big update that is rolling out this month, Teams combines all of the solutions an organization needs into a single consolidated system. Microsoft has created an all-in-one collaborative workspace that has all of the features that an organization could need: chat, calling, meetings, documents, and more.

The benefits of this are pretty clear:

Instead of paying for multiple solutions, you now only need to invest in one.

IT doesn’t have to update and manage multiple tools.

The updated Teams is more intuitive and easier to use, leading to a better overall user experience.

Teams integrates seamlessly with Microsoft’s other offerings, such as SharePoint, OneDrive, Word, etc., making it even easier to share and collaborate on projects using Teams.

Microsoft has created an entirely new backend infrastructure for Teams, resulting in better audio and a superior overall experience.

Who Benefits from the Updated Microsoft Teams

Every organization, from small business to large enterprise, can benefit from the newly updated Microsoft Teams platform. Small businesses are going to benefit from lower costs of adoption and ownership. Enterprises, on the other hand, will appreciate the simpler, more streamlined solution, as well as how Teams helps them to break silos.

Workforces are steadily becoming more dispersed, with remote employees and work-from-home employees now making up a significantly larger portion of our work environment. Having an easy to use, collaborative solution is now a necessity. Microsoft has achieved this with Microsoft Teams.

Are you interested in learning more about migrating to the new Microsoft Office Teams? Contact Red River today to transition from Skype for Business to the new team technology.