Maximizing the Value of Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is one such example, but it’s actually far more capable than many companies realize. In this post, we’ll explore the importance of value in your investments and how you can maximize the value you’re getting from Microsoft Teams.

As a trusted Microsoft partner, we know that our customers have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with generic technologies and products. The current state of global affairs demands solutions that solve real problems, enhance productivity and add quantifiable value.

CFOs, who often have the final say in strategic purchase decisions, focus on saving money by increasing efficiency across the enterprise. Smart CFOs know that sustainable value is not derived from drastic cost-cutting.

Having said that, it would be naïve to think that finance professionals are not interested in lowering expenses – especially during times in which uncertainty is the only constant. But it is important to acknowledge that saving money is not the same as cutting costs.

During its October 2020 earnings call with investors, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, revealed that Microsoft Teams now has 115 million daily active users.

That growth reflects more than Microsoft ingenuity and the evolution of today’s workforce. It shows that enterprises are embracing comprehensive business communications and collaborations that simplify workflows for users and IT departments – and the common sense of leveraging tools for which they’re already paying as part of their Microsoft Office subscriptions.

You guessed it – we’re talking about Microsoft Teams! Microsoft Teams is more than a video meetings platform or a tool for chats. It’s an end-to-end unified communications and collaboration service that your employees are comfortable using and with which they’re already familiar.  The question is – are you making the most of it?

With Aura Connect, your employees can use Microsoft Teams as their primary business phone service. It’s a 100 percent Azure-native calling service for Microsoft Teams. That means you don’t have to go through the arduous process of building Direct Routing services in-house.

The native implementation of managed SBCs provides additional capabilities that would otherwise not be available with standalone appliances such as VoIP mediation, PSTN access survivability and third-party value-added services applications.

Remember the difference between cutting costs and saving money?

Using Aura Connect, Teams can become a centralized hub for communications, collaboration and workflows. This was addressed by Microsoft 365’s Corporate Vice President, Jared Spataro, noting that, “The key to productivity is to move beyond transactional meetings and focus on the flow of work. People don’t just open Teams to join a meeting and then close it when the meeting is over; they work in Teams all day.  It’s a place to exchange ideas, share information, and create human connections. It’s where people work before, during, and after a meeting, and it supports all the different ways people engage and collaborate together.

“Teams brings together meetings, chat, calls, collaboration, third-party apps, and business processes into a single experience, and we are seeing increased usage intensity in Teams as people communicate, collaborate, and co-author content across work, life, and learning.”

Aura Connect provides an innovative way to get the most out of your versatile Microsoft investment. Your IT department will like it because eliminating a third-party phone system means less to worry about, monitor and support. Most importantly, your CFO will love it because the value is self-evident – across-the-board savings coupled with agility for hybrid workforces.

Want to find out more? Contact Aura today for a consultation with one of our Microsoft experts.