What is Microsoft 365 Business? - Techie Whiteboard

Our first whiteboard is here!

We look at Microsoft 365 and all the benefits that it offers small businesses, from business productivity tools to security and more. Kat, our Customer Success Manager, breaks down Microsoft 365 in simple terms.

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Video Transcription

Hello, everyone. My name is Kat Greenan and I'm a Customer Success Manager here at Core. Today, I want to talk to you about Microsoft 365 business. It's a question that we've heard quite a lot, so here is our whiteboard video to explain it to our audience...

What is Microsoft 365 business?

Well, to start, it's a Microsoft licensing package that's designed for businesses with up to 250 users.

Now, it's broken down to three main elements, and if you're like me, you prefer visuals. We've broken down these elements on the whiteboard for you.

So, the first element is Office 365.

Now, your Office 365 gives you the business productivity tools for your employees to get stuff done.

You'll have things like the Office apps that we all know and love - Word, PowerPoint, Excel.

However, you will have some extras as well. There'll be things like SharePoint for your document management system. You'll have Teams for a chat-based collaboration, and you'll have your email access in there as well.

However, Microsoft 365 Business does give you some extra productivity tools that suit smaller businesses and help you engage with your customers a little bit more. You'll get things like MileIQ, which is a tracking app for tracking your mileage. Moreover, you'll also have access to Microsoft Bookings. So, your customers can quite easily book appointments and or book viewings through your app very quickly.

You'll also have Microsoft invoicing, which makes it a little bit easier for you to bill your customers. So, there are extra tools that you'll get in Office 365 as part of Microsoft 365 Business.

So, you have many tools to get stuff done.

But, what about security? Microsoft 365 Business is packed with security features.

I just wanted to point to a couple of them today.

The first one is advanced threat protection or ATP for short. Now, if you can, imagine I am one of your employees. I receive an email that has an attachment and a link. If that link or attachment is malicious, I may open that up. There has been a security breach. I may get a virus.

ATP blocks any malicious email links or any malicious attachments from actually being opened.

Sometimes with a human error, it’s always good to have the extra level of security with your end user emails.

You'll also have a tool called data loss prevention or DLP for short. Now, this lets you identify any secure or sensitive information. So, for example, if you had a 16-digit credit card number, it would recognise that confidential information and even if you'd identify that you want to have an extra level of protection from stopping that being sent out.

So, you can prevent that from being shared externally or being shared through email.

You also have Intune, and Intune is excellent for device management.

If you wanted to protect any devices that your employees work on, whether that's a laptop, mobile or the desktop, you can. You can prevent them from installing specific non-approved applications, protect the machine and push out updates as well. There are lots of different security features that you get in Microsoft 365 Business.

Following on from security...

We have Windows 10.

Now, Windows 10 has its own security features. So you can rest assured that you know your devices are protected from viruses, your folders on the devices are protected from threats like ransomware and you can actually protect your PCs and new machines from any web-based threats through Microsoft Edge.

Now in terms of Windows 10 management, there is a program called Autopilot which gets your new devices business ready within a few clicks.

So, you can imagine how much time this is going to save when you're setting up new devices for your employees. Windows 10 automatically updates your computer as well, so you can rest assured that you know all your Windows 10 machines are entirely up-to-date.

So, you can see that Microsoft Business has many features in there and is great for smaller companies. It helps you get stuff done. It's got security so you know the data is secure, and also you have your device management, which is almost entirely automated.

If you want any more information on Microsoft 365, please feel free to send me an email, which is kathleen.greenan@core.co.uk and if you do want some pricing, please feel free to ask.

What exactly is Microsoft 365 Business?

In a nutshell, Microsoft 365 Business is a licence package designed for businesses with up to 250 users. There are three main elements to 365 Business. They are Office 365, Security and Windows 10.

What does Office 365 do?

Office 365 provides your business with productivity tools you need to get work done. Included in the Office 365 suite of products is Outlook for email, SharePoint which can be used for document collaboration or an intranet and Teams, which can be used for chat and collaboration, too. These platforms are in addition to familiar Office apps, like Word and Excel.

While all these tools are included in Officer 365, 365 Business also gives you a host of other, additional productivity tools that are specifically designed for smaller businesses. Tools include Bookings, which helps customers book appointments with your company, and MileIQ for mileage tracking and logging. Microsoft Invoices is another app which can be used to help send invoices to customers and manage expenses. All these tools have been created to give smaller businesses essential solutions to help them compete in their market.

What about Security?

One of Microsoft’s major focuses is always Security. Microsoft 365 Business features tools that can help secure your data and devices.

• Advanced Threat Protection - Advanced Threat Protection (also called ATP) scans links and attachments from email, blocking them from being opened if it is found to be malicious. This is especially useful given that training doesn’t always get through to every staff member, and that people are curious by nature!

• Data Loss Prevention - Data Loss Prevention (DLP) lets you identify sensitive information in Office 365, such as a credit card number, and then prevents the accidental sharing of that information by blocking the email from being sent.

• Intune - Intune allows you to manage any mobile devices or PCs being by your employees with company data. You can protect the information and how it is accessed and shared using Intune.

Where does Windows 10 come in?

Following on from Security are the Windows 10 security features. This gives you protection from viruses, lets you protect folders from threats like ransomware and also lets you protect your PCs from web-based threats in Microsoft Edge.

In terms of Windows 10 management, you can enable Windows 10 AutoPilot which makes new devices ready to use really quickly and easily, with just a few clicks! You can imagine how much time this saves when setting up devices. Windows 10 devices are updated automatically, and you can control which apps your users have access to from the Microsoft store.
Microsoft 365 Business is feature-heavy and gives employees the tools they need to get stuff done. You can rest easy knowing that data is secure and that your daily management of devices is easy and almost automated.

This post covers just a few of the features of 365 Business, as there many more. If you would like to know more information about Microsoft 365 Business contact us today.