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COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns have brought many changes globally, especially in the work culture. Interestingly, companies and organizations started adopting remote working options. The major challenge is that remote working is only possible using technology. One platform that was widely used for hybrid and remote work was Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 is a suite of powerful tools that is evolving daily to meet the needs of all organizations.
Why is the early adoption of Microsoft 365 so significant?
Microsoft 365 facilitates flexible working beyond traditional working hours and makes everyone more productive. It benefited the organization because Microsoft 365 uses cloud workspace for communication and collaboration across geographical areas and time zones. Hence, adopting Microsoft 365 facilitates work from anywhere and anytime. Some other benefits of Microsoft 365 adoption are:
- Better ROI: When you adopt Microsoft 365 completely, along with all new tools, it will automatically help you increase ROI. It will avoid the costs of stand-alone applications and infrastructure. ROI is enormous as you pay the subscription amount only for what you use.
- Increased productivity and efficiency: Microsoft 365 tools are transforming work habits and helping enterprises to increase their efficiency and productivity by using its advanced tools and modern features. It has excellent features for meetings, calls, chat, file sharing, and even more. The higher the Microsoft 365 adoption levels, the more advantages you have compared to the traditional on-premises applications in terms of productivity and efficiency.
- Ease of communication: With advanced chat, emailing, sharing, and collaboration features, Office 365 helps companies to work together effectively. Applications like MS Teams, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and MS Office Online help to improve communication and collaboration.
- Facilities for remote and hybrid working: The post-pandemic era is of remote and hybrid working. Cloud-based solutions are working great to facilitate communication and collaboration in remote and hybrid work environments. However, Microsoft 365 is one of the most prominent cloud platforms that facilitates this. So, early Microsoft 365 adoption is essential to stay competitive in this challenging environment.
Understanding Microsoft 365 and its challenges
Microsoft 365 is a broad platform, and Microsoft is persistently adding new tools and extending the capabilities of this platform. It can be challenging for employees to keep up with new tools, features, and UI changes. However, if your organization hasn’t adopted Microsoft 365 services, you are missing its advanced features. If you are convinced to get into Microsoft 365, then you must get to know about the challenges:
- The first challenge is for the employee to understand the need to adapt to these new changes. Employees should be aware of why they are learning the skills to use Microsoft 365.
- Exhaustion is an issue that will surely come with the Microsoft 365 adoption and change management. This process requires the continuous initiative of employees to understand the tools and their functioning, which somehow leads to fatigue.
- Sometimes, usage is not proper. For example, Microsoft Teams usage may not be in the correct way. So, the required output might not have been achieved.
- Microsoft 365 is always coming up with new tools and updates. But for users, keeping up with all those tools and updates is hard.
- Budgeting is also a matter when an organization is going to implement Office 365 in the workplace.
What is Microsoft ACM?
Microsoft ACM stands for Adoption and Change Management (ACM), which ensures that your Microsoft 365 is running successfully and delivers excellent ROI for the benefit of enterprises and stakeholders. Every then and now, Microsoft 365 is coming with new tools and updates to raise productivity, drive innovation, and ease collaboration. Hence, users need to understand new tools, applications, and their usage. So, it is essential to develop cloud skills and build confidence among the users.
Requirement of Microsoft 365 ACM
Various elements need to be in place for a successful ACM program that delivers lasting impact.
- Availability of employees: Availability of employees is the first thing required because people understand the tools and their functioning to meet their needs. This learning process is entirely user centric as they need to understand the technology with good user experience. Making employees understand every aspect of the usage of Microsoft 365 and how they will use it to be more productive gives great ROI.
- Training and support to your employee: The second thing is to arrange proper and continuous training. The training will cover discussions and practical workshops to understand this adoption and change management. After training is completed, a support team must be available to reach out in case of any queries.
- Top-down and bottom-up communications: Microsoft 365 adoption should involve both top-down and bottom-up communication. It will help the organization prepare better and adopt the new technology quickly without apprehensions. Proper communication must be to engage employees and produce great outcomes from Microsoft 365 adoption. The organization can use videos and creative assets that will engage employees, lead to great impact, and make them enthusiastic about technology.
Conclusion
Hence, we hope these points have given you complete acknowledgment of the importance and challenges of Microsoft 365 adoption. If you’d like to discuss anything related to Microsoft 365, please feel free to get in touch. Also, you can think of Office 365 backups to ensure security in your Office 365 environment. This can be done using Kernel Office 365 Backup and Restore. It is a simple tool that ensures a complete backup of Office 365 mailboxes.
