Covid-19 created the world’s biggest working from home experiment, catalysing the rapid adoption of Microsoft Teams.  

Just 6 months into the pandemic, Microsoft reported 115 million daily users of the platform, however, for many organisations the platform is not being harnessed to its full capabilities. 

Accelerated remote working

In 2020, remote working became the norm, with office-based roles transferring to home-working due to the pandemic. For many organisations, the transition to remote working was extremely fast. This inevitably placed pressure on IT teams to facilitate large-scale migration, with little time for planning. The change to work environments propelled cloud-based collaboration tools to the forefront of business needs, as organisations implemented mass remote working. Microsoft Teams was, and remains, an ideal solution for many organisations as it is included in Microsoft 365 and provides a remote workspace for an entire organisation.

The benefits of Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a secure communication and collaboration tool which enables productive remote working, and for millions in 2020 facilitated business continuity during a time of global unpredictability. However, Microsoft Teams is much more than a reactive solution to remote working. Teams enables long-term agility across an organisation by unifying departments and communication channels.

Microsoft Teams’ core benefits are: 

• Providing a single place to consolidate all information employees need to do their job 
• Communicate from anywhere with an intelligent cloud meeting solution 
• Built-in security, compliance and manageability from Microsoft 365 
• Integrates with Microsoft solutions and third-party vendors 
• State-of-the-art cross-platform and mobile experiences.

The common challenges of Microsoft Teams rapid adoption

Microsoft Teams has been an invaluable tool for organisations across the globe, during the current pandemic and before. However, rapid adoption of Microsoft Teams has left gaps in terms of governance and cultural adoption for many.  

Many organisations have faced challenges such as: 

• Lack of time to develop a Microsoft Teams governance strategy before roll–out due to the rapid change in working environments 
• Unorganised, sprawling Teams structure with lack of consistency
• Incomplete content migration with legacy documents still held in on-premises infrastructure 
• Limited adoption and training planning, creating skill gaps and silos across the organisation 
• Unsuitable Microsoft Teams administration configuration for the organisation potentially resulting in key services being enabled or disabled. By default, both Microsoft and third-party apps are enabled, however a lot of organisations restrict access to third party apps to ensure all data is secure and retained in Microsoft 365.

As well as organisational challenges, rapid adoption has created challenges for users. Some examples include: 

• Navigating a new way of collaborating and communicating with colleagues 
• Finding the documents and files that they need to work on 
• Non-technical users not understanding all the features available to them due to a lack of training 
• Not having buy-in from all areas of the organisation creating communication silos. 

How to optimise collaboration using Microsoft Teams

If your organisation has experienced challenges due to the rapid adoption of Microsoft Teams, there are ways to improve your usage post-implementation, enabling a culture of productivity and collaboration. Microsoft 365 is an evergreen environment with a constant release of new features and services aimed at assisting employees to work smarter.

At Telefónica Tech our modern workplace experts can evaluate your organisation’s Microsoft Teams usage and develop a plan to ensure you are making the most of your investment.  

We can help you optimise Microsoft Teams by: 

• Developing and implementing a comprehensive governance strategy 
• Planning and setting up the correct team and channel structure that reflects the way your organisation works together 
• Designing and promoting a training and adoption plan that enables users to learn about the features and capabilities of Teams, in a way that works for them 
• Extending teams by developing applications to integrate with other line of business systems. 

Make the most out of Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is so much more than video calls and instant messaging. In-built features such as real-time shared documents and live event hosting encourage a range of interactions within (and out with) your organisation.  

Teams becomes even more powerful when integrated with the wider Microsoft Cloud – working seamlessly with Dynamics 365 and all other Microsoft solutions. The possibilities of collaboration are endless.  

Alternatively find out how Telefónica Tech can help you optimise your use of Microsoft Teams by getting in touch today.