Tuesday's Tip #63: Why Use Teams Reason #5 - It's Simpler!!

It's 3 Times Simpler! 

That might seem like a bold and even maybe a little broad but hear me out....

Anytime we can simplify (in ANY part of our life) it usually pays dividends, but in this case - this translates to not just a single way to simplify but 3 main ones.

There are so many reasons people use Microsoft Teams as we've covered in these last 4 posts that have been part of our series - Why People Use Teams. I've saved the best and easiest for last. Simplicity.

1. It's Always Simpler to have Less Apps

Most of us are using more and more apps. There's a study from a few years ago that had some interesting findings including the average number of apps used by a worker is 9.39 and67% believe it would be easier and less distracting to work in a single app. Enter Microsoft Teams. Check out the study for more interesting stats - but in a nutshell - we're more productive if we don't have to switch between lots of apps. Teams can eliminate apps like Slack, Zoom, Monday, Dropbox, Box etc.  Teams is truly a one stop shop that allows you to have all the following function in a single app. Here are a few biggies....

• Cloud file access and sharing (apps like Box, Dropbox etc)
• Video and audio virtual meeting hub (apps like Zoom, Google Meet)
• Interoffice communication (texting, calls, apps like Skype, What'sAp, Slack)
• Project and team planning, communication and collaboration (apps like Slack, Monday)
• Real-time file collaboration 
• Meeting recordings and video sharing

In a nutshell, less apps is almost always better.

2. Integration with O365 is Seamless

This might seem to contradict less apps, but there are core functionalities every company needs, spreadsheets, word processing, presentation, communication, file storage to name the biggies. Most companies are using Office 365 (aka O365) as their primary office productivity suite which includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and other lesser known apps. Since Teams is part of this suite, the seamless integration with these apps is non-negotiable! Really! Being able to open up your Word doc in Teams and collaborate in real-time with a co-worker saves immeasurable time and complications. We all can attest to more apps means assuming these apps to "talk to each other" and it just doesn't always work. You know the drill, one app upgrades, another doesn't and on and on.... With technology, things just don't always work the way they should and using apps that are all part of the same suite (Microsoft) eliminates and simplifies many of these types of issues. And less apps, means less integration.

3. Invest in what you have - O365.

To parlay of #2 - most companies have O365 and therefore have Microsoft Teams. This means utilizing Teams is a way to invest in the resources you're already paying for and in turn, saving money. That's all there is to it! Get a little training, talk to someone like me about how you can use Teams in your organization and get more bang for your buck by using the things you already have.