Work-from-anywhere flexibility is officially a permanent requirement that businesses must offer if they want to stay competitive from a hiring perspective. Yet the technologies you brought on at the beginning of 2020 to support remote-work life might not be the ones that will support your future success. All organizations hastily cobbled together solutions to accommodate what they thought would be a temporary feature of the pandemic, only to realize work-from-anywhere and hybrid-in-office life is here to stay.
That need has catapulted solutions like collaboration and productivity apps to the forefront of the software world, but how do you know which tools are right for your business? Many in the market claim to have the most robust capabilities, however we at Point Alliance have seen only Microsoft actually fulfill those claims.
From file-sharing to security to team communication, Microsoft offers innovative solutions for businesses of any size and any industry. Below are the top ones to consider if you’re making a technology roadmap for the flexible workforce.
Beyond Collaboration with Microsoft Teams
You might know Teams by name, but many business leaders think it’s just another Slack. In fact, it’s much more than a communications application with another 450 new capabilities introduced to it from Microsoft in the past year. Microsoft is on a mission to make Teams the driver of workplace transformation. Here’s how:
- Microsoft has recently introduced SmartVision 60, the first 360-degree intelligent camera as part of its partnership with Yealink. With it, you can have multiple video streams with active speaker tracking using artificial intelligence (AI).
- Teams Premium introduces even more AI with “Intelligent recap”—an experience akin to having a virtual assistant at each meeting. Intelligent recap automatically creates chapters from your meetings, creates asks, and shares highlights. It also provides live translation for captions in 40 languages.
- A few other features are a part of Teams Premium, including automatic meeting set-up options, advanced security settings, and ways to host high-quality webinars.
Beyond Connection with Microsoft Places
The jump to remote work at first seemed to shine a light on how the office might become obsolete, but over time, the office has proven to be a place where many people do their best work. In order to offer a way for all employees to work in the spaces that suit them best, Microsoft has recently announced Microsoft Places: a “new connected workplace platform that will reimagine hybrid and in-person work.”
With features such as hybrid scheduling that allows users to see when colleagues will be in the office and intelligent booking that matches your meeting need and location with the right technology, at-home and in-office collaboration has never been easier. “Wayfinding” helps people find the right conference rooms, “hot desk booking” gives you the ability to locate and work near your coworkers easily, and “serendipitous meet-ups” give users the ability to create spontaneous gatherings.
Beyond the Employee Experience with Microsoft Viva
As the “first digital employee experience platform that brings connection, purpose, insight, and growth into the flow of work,” Microsoft Viva takes employee empowerment to the next level. Viva aligns employees through technology and keeps objectives and key results (OKRs) top of mind with tools like Viva Goals.
Managers are able to keep tabs on how employees are working, feeling, achieving, and progressing with Viva Pulse—a powerful tool that enables employees to provide quick, confidential input. With such data, leaders can take action when it’s needed—not after burnout and churn have already occurred. Viva Amplify is another tool that centralizes employee communication so important messages can be automatically published and managers can track how messages impact their staff.
Beyond the IT Burden
If you’re thinking “all these solutions sound like a lot of extra work for my IT department,” you would be correct if you were accessing similar ones from other providers, but Microsoft thought ahead and aims to make IT’s life easy. With new capabilities as part of the cloud-enabled Microsoft Intune suite, you can consolidate tools and technology that are adding to your stack and IT’s burden. Microsoft 365 enables you to save time and money as IT goes from managing multiple solutions to just one. Tools such as endpoint privilege management and Microsoft Tunnel for mobile app management give IT the security features they need to protect your productivity and profitability.
Create a Roadmap for Your Business in the Era of the Distributed Workforce
Microsoft has also made significant innovations in other areas, not the least of which is its new Windows 365 cloud computing “paradigm” as it is calling it—built for the work-from-anywhere era. In the Windows 365 app, you can stream a full Windows experience to any device by accessing your cloud PC from your Windows 11 taskbar or start menu.
To truly leverage the power of all these solutions in the right way for your business, it’s best to work with a partner that knows Microsoft inside and out. Point Alliance has deep experience helping businesses of all sizes onboard Microsoft’s innovative technologies in a customizable way to best suit their goals. Get in touch with us today to discuss your organization’s needs and pave your way into the era of work-from-anywhere with the right solutions.
