You’ve probably heard plenty of chatter about Microsoft Office 365. You might even be familiar with some of its tools and features. But if you aren’t already using the cloud-based solution, chances are that you’re not aware of the difference Office 365 can make for your employees and their productivity.

In our experience, the primary inhibitor to businesses adopting Office 365 is lack of resources: IT personnel are busy with other initiatives, and migrating data to the cloud can be difficult without in-house expertise. But with TPx at your side, you can unleash the power of Office 365, which is so much more than just Microsoft Office in the cloud. The list of benefits is long, but we’ve narrowed them down to these six keys to helping you grow your business:

1. Simplified Administration

Dealing with software licenses can be a headache. But Office 365 includes all licensing and it can be deployed company wide, ensuring that all employees have the same version of Microsoft apps and automatic updates at the same time. Employees also can log on from any device at home or in the office. Since each user can install Office 365 on up to five devices, a mobile BYOD (bring your own device) policy is much easier to manage. In addition, data backup, security and recovery are managed by Microsoft.

2. Mobile Access

With Office 365, your calendar and all of your contacts and emails are automatically synchronized with your mobile devices, allowing you to access and edit files in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote from anywhere, anytime. All you need to do is add your work account to the Microsoft Office app and you can easily edit the files you have saved in OneDrive for Business.

3. Lowers Costs/Capex

With TPx Managed Office 365, you don’t have to worry about servers (or the related energy costs and office space to store them) or rely on a heavy in-house IT department. TPx Microsoft Certified Solutions experts act as an extension of your IT team to handle all onboarding and ongoing support so you don’t have to. In addition, you can swap out DropBox for Microsoft OneDrive and use Skype for Business in the place of GoToMeeting to save money.

4. Powerful Collaboration

Office 365 enables your employees to communicate via instant messaging and work collaboratively on documents and files in SharePoint. You can set your own document management and sharing criteria, allowing you to quickly share files and build intranets, extranets and project-oriented collaboration sites. Microsoft Office 365 also offers a video delivery solution with built-in encoding and management tools to streamline the process of uploading video and building video portals. And video is stored and streamed from Microsoft Azure using Microsoft’s global network.

5. Scalability and Flexibility

Office 365 grows with your organization, allowing you to add or remove users by simply adding or removing licenses. You’re not locked into a contract – you’re only committed to your service package for a month at a time with a flexible monthly subscription model. Office 365 also allows you to mix-and-match apps to customize solutions for different users or departments.

6. Robust Security and Compliance

With Office 365, Microsoft systems scan your messages and documents for spam and malicious software, and Microsoft data centers help safeguard your data. Essentially, you get built-in security and it’s easy to remotely wipe all data if you lose a mobile device. Additionally, multiple add-ons let you tailor Office 365 to specific industry regulations and data compliance requirements. For example, security and encryption settings can be customized to comply with HIPAA, FISMA, ISO 27001, and more.

These features, combined with TPx’s state-of-the-art operations security center (SOC), managed firewall and business continuity solutions, are a potent combination.

The bottom line is that, in today’s competitive business environment, your business can’t afford not to use Office 365, especially when you can lean on TPx Microsoft Certified Solutions Experts for the migration, onboarding and ongoing support.

About the Author

Ross Spero is a Sr. Product Manager for ITx Managed Services. His products including TPx’s managed IT offerings for Microsoft Office 365, Workstations and Servers RMM, and Backup. Ross received his undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon and is currently earning his Executive MBA from the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. He resides in Seattle.