Tools are there to increase our productivity and overall effectiveness. Microsoft tools are no different. Some of these tools exist to ease communication between employees and teams, others to prioritize tasks, while others, still, live to delegate responsibilities. Depending on the size of your business or the nature of your industry, be it financial, healthcare, and so on, these Microsoft tools that will increase your productivity are among the premier applications of their type. If you'd like a hands-on complimentary demo of these products, request a Customer Immersion Experience.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure is a flexible cloud platform that allows users to rapidly build, deploy, and manage various applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters. Azure will enable you to create applications by using any language you desire, as well as any tool or framework. What's more, you can scale your apps to any size without having to focus on the infrastructure already in place.
Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite
Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) is a set of tools that provide the user with everything they need to administer, provision, and secure the devices used in an enterprise. Among these, we have devices such as smartphones, laptops, or tablets, which can be managed from a single place.
It is a tool specifically designed for enterprises that want to have better control over their assets and intellectual property, all the while, minimizing the need for human resources.
Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft Office 365 is a wide variety of powerful features that improve your file sharing capabilities, online meetings, and email management, among several others. OneDrive, for instance, will provide a great cloud storage solution, while Skype for Business will enhance your internal communications. Microsoft Office has made a name for itself over the years and Office 365 is just a more versatile and all-encompassing version of that.
Microsoft Hyper-V
With Microsoft Hyper-V, you can create and run a software version of your computer. Known as a virtual machine; this software version will act like a complete computer with its own operating system and installed programs. Hyper-V will run each of the virtual machines that it creates in an isolated space, meaning that you can avoid crashes and other such problems affecting different workloads.
In short, Hyper-V can help you in establishing or expanding your private cloud environment. It will also use your hardware more effectively by consolidating servers and workloads onto fewer and more powerful computers that use less energy and space. Hyper-V will also improve your business continuity by minimizing the impact of downtime, be it scheduled or not. It will establish and expand your virtual desktop infrastructure, also making development and testing easier and more efficient.
Microsoft SharePoint
SharePoint is a web-based platform that integrates with Microsoft Office, enhancing collaboration between organizations. This tool is primarily used as a storage and document management system that can help companies solve various challenges such as disconnected teams and people, slow turnarounds, lost productivity, or outdated IT systems that are difficult to scale appropriately.
Conclusion
All of these Microsoft tools here, as well as others such as Exchange, Directory Services, or Dynamics CRM, will help you to increase your company's productivity.
Managed Solution is an organization that provides IT managed services to various companies in the finance, healthcare, or biotech industries, among others. As part of the top 1% of Microsoft Cloud Service Providers worldwide, Managed Solution will help you leverage these technologies, provide the most up-to-date solutions that are sure to drive productivity and innovation, resulting in an overall increase in revenue.
Microsoft Office 365 provides the cornerstone functionality required of a pharmaceutical company that envisions a cure for opioid addiction. Indivior focuses on new medicine and new treatments that require better solutions. Operating in a document- and data-heavy industry requires robust sharing and analysis capabilities. Fortunately, Office 365 is the premier collaboration and data analysis tool for the modern business, no matter the size. Indivior works with documents over 500,000 pages long with ease thanks to Office 365, and is able to share documents among teams around the world.
Managed Solution can help your business achieve the advantages of Office 365 too. Contact us to find out how.
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Office 365 is your always up to date, best in class productivity tool. With features like Modern Attachments that gets files out of your inbox and Co-Authoring in Word that lets multiple people work on the same document at the same time, you’ll see that the new Office is more secure, more collaborative, and more convenient than ever before.
With the new Office you can get more done with innovative features, such as:
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Access content securely with Multi-Factor Authentication.
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Reduce risk with built-in Data Loss Prevention.
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Never miss a security release with Deferred Updates.
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Log in just once with Windows 10 Hello and Single Sign On.
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Co-author documents at the same time.
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Always stay connected with Skype meetings.
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Get files out of your inbox with Modern Attachments.
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Connect the team with shared notebooks.
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Take Office everywhere with mobile apps.
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Find the right command, fast, with help from Tell Me.
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Quickly find what you’re looking for with Smart Lookup.
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Access your most recently used documents from any device.
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With the new Office 365, it's much easier to collaborate with your colleagues. Here's how:
- Co-author on projects in Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote
- Keep your teams connect with Office 465 Groups and Office 365 Planner
- Take your Office anywhere on any device
https://vimeo.com/222787992
Microsoft has been spending a lot of time with small business lately, and just shared a cool clip showcasing how Turbine Test Services, a professional services company with four employees, uses Office 365 to maintain wind turbines along America’s wind corridor while working remotely across two states.
Because they maintain wind turbines across the country, this small business needed a software solution that was always up-to-date and accessible – from on the ground at the office, and from on top of a 300-foot wind turbine. They found it with Office 365, and you can too.
Contact us today for a Customer Immersion Experience workshop where a Microsoft-Certified Facilitator comes on-site and demonstrates Office 365 and all that it comes with. These allow attendees explore at their own pace and focus on first-hand experience with the tools that address your business needs for your organization.
Starting as purely a creative outlet, Jennifer Sarkilahti made handcrafted jewelry. However, as she was inspired by the city's entrepreneurial spirit, she created Odette New York. Along the way, Sarkilahti's real challenge wasn’t finding a market for her jewelry, it was to stay connected to the creative process even as the business grew. Office 365 played a key role in Odette New York's needs, catering to their specific artistic needs as a business.
Staying small as a growth strategy
Sarkilahti was adamant about not getting too big, too fast. Keeping things local allowed her to stay in tune with the creative process as well as her manufacturing partners. “As a business, we value that we are able to make our product locally and take a slower, more thoughtful approach to manufacturing. Although the costs are higher to produce domestically, we can maintain a connection to the jewelry and the people that have a hand in making it throughout the entire process,” says Sarkilahti.
An intuitive software solution
Sarkilahti admits that technology doesn’t come as naturally to her as the artistic process, however, she credits Office 365 for helping her through this. With that help, she is able to focus on her creativity, Sarkilahti states, “I’ve found the Office 365 products to be intuitive and easy to learn, as well as capable of adapting to whatever our needs of the moment might be. We use Excel and Outlook to help us create an efficient workflow process within our studio and communicate with people outside our studio, including vendors, retailers and customers. And on the creative side, we use PowerPoint to create mood boards for new collections, photoshoots and look books.”
Their slower approach to growth is certainly paying off. Odette New York currently has over 70 accounts, including both domestic and international retailers, and has been featured in major publications such as Vogue and Elle. Perhaps more importantly, Sarkilahti spends her days doing what she loves most—creating beautiful, handcrafted jewelry in her stunning Brooklyn studio.
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When I joined Edwards Lifesciences three years ago, I was attracted to an innovative medical technology company that clearly puts patients first. I also saw an opportunity to revamp the IT organization to partner more strategically with the business and deliver a modern, agile workplace that strengthens the collaborative culture at our company. We embraced the Microsoft Office 365 suite to drive mobility, agility and innovation at Edwards Lifesciences.
Collaboration is at the heart of the corporate ethos at Edwards, so much so that the user-friendly services within Office 365, such as Yammer, have already gone viral within the company. I’m thrilled to see employees using the enterprise social network to ask questions and create a dialogue across our global network. Today, Skype for Business Online is the primary tool for meetings and collaboration at Edwards. I love the whiteboard capability for large meetings and problem-solving discussions with colleagues around the globe. And we’re using Microsoft Surface Hub devices to augment our video calls with a great interactive whiteboarding experience. As we begin using Skype for Business PSTN conferencing with dial-in capabilities, it will provide a new level of effortless communication in an environment that meets the high demands for security in our industry.
We’re in a highly regulated industry, so security played a major role in our decision to go with Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security. Our strategy is simple: when you provide employees with a protected environment and user-friendly, leading-edge tools, they won’t feel compelled to pursue rogue IT. The rich set of productivity apps within Office 365 addresses all the collaboration scenarios that employees had tried to fill with third-party solutions. And we take advantage of rights management and data loss prevention capabilities within Office 365 to protect our information, so that collaboration happens in a highly secure environment.
We have an estimated 5,000 terabytes of data in our organization, so understanding where that data is and how it’s being used is a huge concern, especially when you want to enhance mobility. We’re using Enterprise Mobility + Security to support secure mobile access to our data via personal devices. In the past, Edwards employees were required to change their passwords every 60 days, creating confusion and inefficiency, but with Azure Active Directory Premium in Enterprise Mobility + Security providing multi-factor authentication, we are doing away with this cumbersome practice. In addition, if our employees forget their password, they can handle this on their own with Self-Service Password Management, which is quicker and more efficient, which also frees up our help desk for more important items. The wealth of security features in Enterprise Mobility + Security and Office 365 work together to create a highly secure, productive workplace where people can get their work done without distractions.
We’re also eliminating file shares within the organization. Thanks to OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online, employees will have a more secure, efficient alternative that saves time when it comes to searching for documents and files. And with Office 365 ProPlus, employees have the same great work experience with the latest version of Office on more than one device. It all comes back to ease of use; employees deserve secure, effective tools that facilitate collaboration and are as intuitive as the technology they have at home.
Historically, the IT organization at Edwards Lifesciences put a huge amount of effort into responding to requests and keeping the environment up and running; it left little time for anything else. Early on, I wondered if our reactionary approach was more of a help or a hindrance to innovation. I see a paradigm shift in IT at Edwards Lifesciences with the deployment of easy-to-use Office 365 services that usher in a new way of working for our employees, and free up time for IT to focus on more strategic initiatives and serve as stronger business partners. We’re using the Office 365 platform to take us to the next level of mobility, productivity and security, so this amazing company can continue to innovate, creating medical devices that improve the health of people everywhere.
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Help prevent user-error security breaches
According to the Association of Corporate Counsel, unintentional employee error is the top cause of data breaches. And with 87 percent of IT professionals concerned about the security of cloud data, according to a Dimensional Research survey conducted for Druva, it’s easy to feel vulnerable. Preventing these unintentional errors can help keep your data protected.
The problem—simple passwords
Simple or reused passwords open the door to hackers. According to SplashData, the top five worst passwords of 2015 were:
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123456
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password
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12345678
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qwerty
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12345
But even a great password can pose problems when used on multiple sites. Hackers know that people like to reuse passwords, so when they crack one, they test it on multiple sites, especially those that may contain higher value information.
Your solution—Educate employees on how to create a strong password. Then put a policy in place to ensure passwords meet minimum complexity requirements and require that users change them often. Also, encourage secure password-keeping practices such as using third-party services that store passwords in the cloud and secure them all with a master password.
The problem—falling for phishing
According to a Verizon Data Breach report, phishing is the second most common threat and is implicated in around a quarter of all data breaches. If a phishing message ends up in an employee’s inbox, there’s a good chance they will click the link.
Your solution—In addition to top-notch security and secure email filters, encourage users to report suspicious-looking messages—similar to reporting junk mail. Once reviewed and identified as a threat, add these messages to service-wide filters.
In Exchange Online, Email Safety Tips provide an additional layer of protection with a warning to the user in messages that are marked suspicious.
The problem—BYOD practices
Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies are widely used in today’s business landscape, but employees accessing sensitive information from personal devices can open the door to security threats. According to research from the Ponemon Institute, a total of 67 percent of respondents cited employees using their devices to access company data as likely or certainly the cause of data breaches.
Your solution—Create clear BYOD policies and educate employees on how to follow these guidelines—including what’s at risk if they’re ignored. For additional layers of security, require the use of approved secure mobile apps and multi-factor authentication when accessing company information.
The problem—lost or stolen devices
Lost devices are another leading cause of data breaches. And not just employee-owned devices—even your company’s devices are at risk, leaving your organization exposed to threats if they are lost or stolen.
Your solution—Educate employees on proper device security on- and off-premises, and instruct them to report lost devices as soon as possible. Enable security policies to ensure you can remotely access, locate and wipe a device if necessary.
Continually educate employees to minimize risk of common user-error breaches. Security features available with Office 365 help mitigate the risks introduced by employees. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) proactively scans emails and notifies users before they send sensitive information. Information Rights Management (IRM) allows you to control email access permissions to keep unauthorized people from printing, forwarding or copying sensitive information. Additionally, Office 365 gives you the option to use Microsoft Defender to safeguard mailboxes against sophisticated attacks in real time.
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