How Not Using Microsoft 365 is Wasting Your Time and Money
Sometimes in life, there are things so simple and smart that not adopting them calls into question the mental capacity of the laggard. The telephone, personal computer, internet, cell phones, and potatoes are five that come to mind. Seriously, Europe took about 200 years to replace turnips with potatoes.
In business, that thing, so simple and smart, is Microsoft 365. If you are not familiar that is so sad, but today is your lucky day. Microsoft 365 is Microsoft’s suite of business enablement tools that include Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange email, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Azure. If those 6 programs were basketball players, Lebron James would not be in the starting lineup.
For $8 a month you get the best email platform in the world, 1TB of storage in OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams (the only thing that even compares to Zoom for video meetings). For $8 extra a month, add on Microsoft Office, which used to cost $500.
Wasting Time
There are a few ways you waste time not being on the Microsoft 365 platform. The first is managing multiple vendors when you could be managing just one. Like going to the baker, the butcher, and fruit stand when you can get everything your need at the grocery store. But, but, but the baker has better bread than the grocery. True enough, but in the case of Microsoft the grocery is pretty amazing, and better than most bakeries.
So, there is the time and effort you spend managing multiple vendors, but what about putting it all together. You get your email in one place, and your file storage in another, and your video meetings somewhere else, and your security (never mind you don’t have time for that), and desktop programs from another vendor. Now you have to make them all talk. So instead of eating at restaurant with a gourmet cook, it’s like you’re stuck at home making dinner, except you don’t have a recipe. What a waste of time.
The last way you are wasting time in saying to yourself, “I don’t need Microsoft 365, I’m managing without it.” Every minute you tell yourself that is a minute you can never get back in the land of cobbled together.
Wasting Money
Stop spending money on inferior products. You know, Google as a well-rounded suite of tools, called Workspace. Do you know how much it costs? $0.20 more for the basic platform and .40 cents less than Microsoft the Standard platform. Here’s the comparison: it’s like playing the best 2020 college basketball team, Dayton Ohio, against the 2020 NBA Champions, the Los Angeles Lakers; there’s no contest. So why would you spend money on that?
But wait, what if my email only costs a couple of bucks a month? It could be free and you’d still be wasting your time. See the previous section that you glossed over.
Remember how shopping at multiple vendors is a waste of time? It is also a waste of money. For argument’s sake, let’s say you pick Microsoft 365 because it has the best email and office suite. That costs you $16 a month. But now you pick first-to-market or market leader in other producsts: $20 a month for Zoom (video meetings), plus $20 a month for Dropbox (file sharing), plus $10 a month for Slack (team messaging), plus $10 a month Jumpcloud (device and user security). All that you can have at no additional cost with your email and office suite in Microsoft 365.
Notice I didn’t mention Google in any of the first-to-market or market-leader products? Because their old college try isn’t cutting it. Google is good at search. Do you know what else they are good at? Abusing search and taking advantage of her. Not that my conscience feels guilty enough to switch to Bing. Barf.
One more thing. If your Office 365 is paid through GoDaddy, or some other vendor that hijacks the control panel, you not getting what you are paying for. You, or somebody on your team, should be able to log in at https://admin.microsoft.com and see access to users and a host of other powerful tools. Even if you don’t know what you are doing in there, at least you’re getting what you paid for.
Are you wasting your time and money in Cobble Land? Do you need help bringing to bare the amazing functions of Microsoft 365? Call us, and we’ll get you sorted.