7 Ways Microsoft 365 Makes Remote Working Better
Whilst IT departments across the county (and indeed the world) are helping companies working remotely, it’s now time to go back and review whether we have everything in place for a secure and productive long-term solution. That includes making sure that IT teams are able to deploy and manage IT easily wherever it is, and wherever they are. With that in mind, technology services provider, Probrand, have researched into how and why Microsoft 365 makes working from home so much easier.
Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based subscription service combining all the standard Office apps and more, cloud services and built-in security throughout. Here are the 7 key reasons remote working is better when you use it:
- Wherever, whenever, device security
Maintain security by managing business devices remotely, with the facility to manage the business side of a user’s personal devices when they’re being used for work. Wherever your IT team are, and wherever the device is, you can set access permissions, wifi access rules, geographic rules for login, and restrict how data can be copied amongst other functionality designed to help you protect unauthorised access. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for additional protection. And if a device gets lost or is stolen, you can remote wipe the data for peace of mind.
- Always up-to-date, automatically
With automatic monthly security updates and twice-annual feature updates for all your users, rest easy that cyber-attacks won’t be able to exploit any recent vulnerabilities to access your system, wherever your users are accessing it from.
- Multiple devices per user? No problem
Unlike perpetual licence versions of Office apps can be installed and used on up to five phones, five tablets, and five PCs or Macs at the same time. Users can also manage installs themselves through their portal (with access permissions already set in the background). It gives users a productivity boost by allowing them to use the device which best suits their needs for a task, whilst making sure everything’s tied back to the same account and same permissions.
- Start eliminating unnecessary on-prem IT
Let’s face facts, if you were starting from scratch, working out of the cloud would be many organisations’ first choice for the scalability, mobility and accessibility it offers along with no requirement to buy, store and maintain a load of hardware off the bat. Microsoft 365 gives you the opportunity to ditch legacy hardware, so you can focus on managing your system, wherever you are.
- Simplify device management, wherever your users are
Intune enables you to manage policies, apps, and settings for your users’ devices including shared devices, all from a web-based portal. Easily manage apps and settings on all your Windows 10 devices using a web-based console designed to make it easy to get groups of Windows 10 devices up and running in minutes.
- Goodbye imaging, hello ship and deploy
You could take the time to get your devices shipped to you, re-imaged and then sent on to the end user, or you could take advantage of Autopilot and Microsoft 365. This allows you to ship and deploy straight into your users’ hands, saving you time, particularly as there’s likely to be an increase in this requirement with remote working.
- The latest collaboration and productivity tools, always
To enable your users to get the best experience of remote working, they need the right tools. Otherwise the budget-sucking, security-bypassing spectre of shadow IT can rear its head. Thankfully Microsoft 365 not only includes all the usual Office suite suspects, but a huge number of other Microsoft Enterprise apps. You can also integrate third party apps, and even build your own with Azure.
