In the four years since Microsoft Teams launched, the platform has become steadily more entrenched in the global collaboration marketplace, replacing older competitors and providing stiff competition to startups. In April 2021, the company announced that 145 million users were relying on Teams every day, and in July, it further added that Teams’ monthly active user rate stood at 250 million.
As we start another year, is there a strong business case for adopting Microsoft Teams? We’d say the answer is absolutely, there are several reasons why Teams adoption makes good investment sense right now.
What Does Microsoft Teams Mean for Office Collaboration in 2023?
Microsoft Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform based on the cloud.
Core functions include:
- Providing users with an online channel for chat, audio, and video calls,
- Integrating with hundreds of third-party apps to enable connected workflows,
- Supporting PSTN-like, enterprise-grade calling
- Helping build virtually infinite repositories of information via SharePoint.
Teams was always a compelling product premise, and it has gained new momentum in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As so many teams, organisations, frontline centres, and governments had to close their physical offices, it was important to replicate those business activities remotely. Microsoft Teams was instrumental in transforming events, communication, emergency updates, and more for the remote work and low-touch era.
There are several drivers for Teams adoption that make it geared to generate ROI:
- The cost barriers for adoption are very low. Customers already using an Office 365 or Microsoft 365 plan will find the implementation process quite seamless, even for large deployments
- The learning curve is manageable. Employees can start using Teams’ basic functionalities without much training (although power users may want additional training to unpack all the features)
- The infrastructure is extremely reliable. Barring the occasional outage, Teams has shown exemplary performance on the cloud, which makes it a good fit for governments, essential service providers, and similar organisations
- Microsoft’s integration and partner landscape are among the largest in the world. This makes it easy to set up connected workflows and automation
As you can see, Microsoft has put together an outstanding value proposition in Teams and continues enhancing it through commonplace updates.
Use Cases for Deploying Microsoft Teams
There are several use cases where Microsoft Teams could make a difference.
Remote collaboration
At its most foundational level, Teams aids collaboration and helps overcome locational barriers. It supports asynchronous capabilities so co-workers from across time zones can share information, exchange ideas, and work together without disrupting their work-life balance.
Internal events and webinars
Microsoft Teams has high-capacity video and audio calling features. Up to 1000 people can join in a call, chat, and participate. Up to 20,000 people can join in a view or listen-only mode, delivering a webinar-like experience. Investing in Teams can address both 1-on-1 and group communication use cases.
Teams-based contact centre
Teams’ direct calling capabilities through a dedicated Phone System make it ideal for building cloud-based contact centres. You can even choose to integrate your own PSTN carrier through direct routing or subscribe to Calling Plans, where Microsoft acts as your PSTN carrier.
Frontline connectivity
Microsoft Teams keeps in mind the needs of the frontline workforce. It has powerful workforce management and scheduling features, while field tasks and workflows are ready to automate using Teams integrations. Microsoft also partners with Samsung, Jabra, and other hardware OEMs to cater to this use case.
Knowledge management
Teams can be invaluable for building an internal knowledge base with a proper index, search, and security. A Wiki accompanies all Teams channels, and the platform integrates with SharePoint to create structured information repositories.
Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Teams
The ROI from investing in Teams has been well documented, and the platform results in significant time, cost, and effort savings. According to a Microsoft-commissioned Forrester report, Teams can help between 1.1 to 8 hours per user per week, depending on their job role. Over three years, Teams generates $5,416 in net value per user. Frontline workers save 45 minutes per week due to better collaboration, and worker attrition decreases by 0.4 percentage points.
In a nutshell, Forrester found that Microsoft Teams accrues 832% in ROI in the long term, and you can pay back your initial investment in less than six months.
Keep in mind that this study came out before the pandemic, and it is likely that its value generation capabilities will increase even more now. Due to its low CapEx component, powerful under-the-hood features (AI, automation, metaverse), and deep integration, there is a very strong business case for companies looking to adopt Microsoft Teams.
The Bottom Line
Despite being a relatively late market entrant, Microsoft has hit the nail on the head, as it were, with Teams. As companies grow and mature their investment in digital technology, they will be able to discover new and exciting ways to use Teams’ rich features and capabilities.
Already, in the last few years, businesses and governments have achieved remarkable outcomes using Teams. Marks & Spencer, for instance, uses a combination of different Microsoft apps to track promotions in 800+ global stores. The municipal government in Australia’s city of Victoria was able to quickly build an intranet on Teams during the pandemic. Grant Thornton replaced its legacy infrastructure with a digital workplace based on Teams, called Canvas.
We look forward to several such exciting updates — watch this space for more.
