MyHub
MyHub
Jul 10, 2017 · 5 min read

Microsoft Office 365 and Your Office Intranet: A Match Made In Heaven

When it comes to the world of software, Microsoft towers above all others. In fact, its reach is so immense, that Microsoft Office is now used by 1 in 6 people across the world. That’s right — gather six people in a room at random from all corners of the earth, and one of them will be a regular Microsoft Office user. With these 1.2 billion users worldwide and 60 million using Office 365, the cloud-based option, Microsoft Office is an unrivalled platform for businesses to share and collaborate on information.

If only this powerful tool could be combined with the well-known benefits of intranet. Your company’s investment in both platforms would be even more fruitful, with enhanced productivity and efficiency savings going through the roof! The great news is, combining Microsoft Office 365 with your company intranet is possible. Microsoft Intranet is a thing, and we’re here to outline why your business needs it.

Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate!

In today’s knowledge-based economy, collaboration is more than just a buzzword. It’s the new norm, a reality that we must embrace with two hands to remain competitive. Using Office 365 and your intranet together creates limitless opportunities for collaboration between your teams. Perhaps the simplest function is the embedding of any Microsoft Office programs directly into your intranet. No need to double click and open the document in another window — simply start working on it, directly within your intranet. Updates to any changes you make will occur instantly and automatically, meaning that everyone always has the most recent copy.

You know that new execution plan you’ve been preparing to roll out? No doubt you’ve been going back and forth for weeks or months between marketing, IT, sales, operations, finance and senior leadership, trying to agree on everything from overall strategic direction down to the nitty gritty tasks and timeframes. How many countless emails have been sent back and forth? How many times have you had to spend hours merging documents, because two different departments were working out of different copies? How often have you struggled to get everyone in the room at one time to agree on certain areas, and a decision that should have taken minutes takes weeks?

Combining Office 365 with your intranet negates these headaches. Create a private group in your intranet with all the relevant stakeholders, and imbed your execution plan directly into the page, along with all the other necessary information. Different departments can now input their thoughts in real-time, giving feedback on other areas and updating as they go. Less labor intensive, less duplication of work, and less headaches. Overall, a smoother, more cost-efficient and more enjoyable process.

Managing Made Easy

Downtime can be debilitating for your business. Combining Office 365 with your company intranet not only minimizes downtime due to updates and faults, but also enhances security and makes ongoing maintenance a breeze.

Cloud computing has a 99.9% ‘up time’. That’s 999 days out of 1000 working perfectly. If you’re sick of software that constantly crashes due to faults, or regularly requires lengthy amounts of time to run updates and maintenance, then Office 365 is for you. Integrating this platform with your intranet allows you to do away with email exchanges and annoying company servers. What’s more, individual Microsoft Office programs, as well as the various tools and applications in your intranet, are all automatically updated through the cloud. The result? Convenience, happier staff, and great savings in your IT budget to use elsewhere.

Many people are suspicious of security when it comes to the cloud. We’re here to tell you that the security of your data is most likely to be stronger with the cloud option. The very latest, high-power security features are available through Microsoft and cloud-based intranet, including features such as Amazon Web Servers (compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and two-way SSL encryption. At the end of the day, your intranet provider and Microsoft depend on having the very best security for their businesses to succeed — why not leave it to them?

Engage Your Staff With The Right Information

The key to a well-oiled business is first and foremost getting your employees to engage with the right information. Barriers to this will only cause frustration, decreases in productivity, and ultimately disengagement.

By utilizing Office 365 integrated into your intranet, searching for information becomes not only easy, but meaningful. Intranet provides all-important context for information, making search results visual and relevant. Instead of company policies being stored somewhere in the backblocks of your server, only to be retrieved with great effort, they can now be found with the simple search of a key word in your intranet. Results will be provided alongside images and other relevant content, so staff are able to immediately engage.

Productivity Around The Clock

Embed Office 365 in your intranet, and staff no longer need to be in the office to get their work done. It goes without saying that this provides your organization with an immense competitive advantage — not only do you utilize all the downtime of your employees on the road and in the field, but working remotely or telecommuting has now become a big selling point when sourcing new talent.

These two platforms work in such harmony that your staff will love it. For example, a field technician out working on an order can simply log into the intranet, and update an Excel spreadsheet once the job is complete. This information can instantly be seen by your support team back in the office, who can immediately begin on processing the order. In fact, multiple field technicians can be working on the same spreadsheet at the same time, updating jobs from around the globe. No need to jump on the phone because your spreadsheet is outdated. Now, that’s refreshing. Better capturing of information, better internal communication, and better service to your customers.

Talk To MyHub And Get The Ball Rolling

Ultimately, the choice is yours, and it’s simple. Cloud computing is the way of the future, and the partnership between Microsoft Office 365 and cloud-based intranet is the best way to enter this space. All hours access, real-time updates, incredible collaboration, no maintenance headaches, immensely secure and a great way to engage your staff with new information. To stay competitive, and stay ahead of your competitors, these benefits need to be captured.

Contact us at MyHub today for a free demo and consultancy session showing how simple it is to embed Microsoft Office 365 documents into your intranet.

MyHub

Written by

MyHub

MyHub, easy to use cloud-based intranet solutions that help businesses communicate and collaborate. https://www.myhubintranet.com

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