Can Microsoft Teams save my business money?

We’re so used to the wide range of video conferencing and instant messaging tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet that helped us connect with people over lockdown. With people now returning to the office, you may be feeling that you’ll no longer be as reliant on these tools, and wondering what type of ROI they deliver.

You may want to think again and consider how Microsoft Teams could save your business money.

Forrester carried out a study for Microsoft looking at The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Teams. They found 11 clear benefits, within the 50 interviews they carried out, finding that Microsoft Teams actually delivers a 832% ROI.

• More effective and efficient meetings
• Reduced communication and collaboration solution costs
• Reduction in overnight trips
• Information worker collaboration time savings
• First line worker collaboration time savings
• Faster time-to-decision
• Reduced employee turnover and onboarding costs
• Application switching time savings
• Working with outside organisations time saving
• Reduced user downtime
• Reduced IT compliance and eDiscovery

Benefits of Microsoft Teams’ communication

In the research, we found that people started to have 21% less total meetings and the duration of meetings fell too. As Microsoft Teams meetings were so easy to setup and reliable with very high audio quality, workers spent less time struggling with call quality and making sure everyone could see and hear each other.

Businesses dealing with international clients and colleagues also saw a dramatic saving in mobile and on-premise telephony international call charges. They found making a call over teams not only cheaper but a lot more flexible and easier to use.

And most of all the biggest cost saver, is that , online meetings will replace decrease the requirement for  overnight stays and transportation with a total savings worth £169,641 over three years.

Collaboration saves time

When it comes to collaboration on documents and working together on team projects together, Microsoft Teams incorporates its Microsoft 365 applications into one ecosystem and offers a complete co-authoring and version control solution.

Firstline workers found they saved 45 minutes per week by collaborating on Teams with colleagues. Teams collaboration solution allows workers to collaborate effectively and efficiently, make it quicker to speak to the right decision makers and getting sign off on time.

Making use of handy features like the whiteboard and document sharing, it lets colleagues to continue to work from home, not needing to huddle in a boardroom to gain value out of a meeting.

Microsoft’s simple ecosystem 

The fact that Teams has so many useful collaboration tools within the single application can save employees 15 minutes per day when compared to having to tab between various apps like Zoom or Skype, throughout the day. Microsoft Teams encourages the creation of shared workspaces so users can extend a shared area to customers, suppliers and other external parties. Again, this eases collaboration, improves customer satisfaction, and speeds up processes. Of course, Teams is part of the Microsoft 365 suite, so offers full, yet simple and easy to use integration with Word, Excel, SharePoint and more.

Microsoft Teams also allows your to make and receive calls within the application to make it simple and straightforward to speak to co-workers and customers. Microsoft Teams Calling can be easily integrated into your VoIP phone system making calling not only simple but cost-effective too.

Teams’ reliability & confidence

Due to Microsoft Teams providing all the collaboration tools from one cloud-based location reduces user downtime by an estimated 14.6% due to its high availability. As staff are online and less deterred by travelling to meetings or being away from their devices, means that co-workers are able to get hold the right people as they become available and gain quick resolutions from a quick call or online chat.

Workers found confident to use the application as they were used to usability of all of Microsoft’s other applications, so it saved companies time in training up their staff when bringing it on board, as opposed to other applications. The staff felt comfortable with Microsoft Teams and therefore had the confidence to embrace its features easily.

Secure and scalable for your business

Microsoft Teams also provides a very high level of security and scalability, meaning that you can be confident that you’re protected from any cyber or phishing attacks. You’ll also have the ability to quickly and easily add and remove users when your staff intake changes.

Of course, the ROI you can generate from Microsoft Teams is dependant on the usage of the application, but it’s clear to see that no matter your employees are working at home or at the office, you’ll see plenty of savings and benefits by using Teams more.