As technology becomes essential to gaining a competitive advantage, cloud services like Office 365 help small businesses across the San Francisco Bay Area like yours outperform the competition.

Microsoft has years of experience delivering scalable, secure online solutions. For more than 25 years, they have helped small businesses be more productive.  An example of this is Microsoft Office 365—A subscription-based online suite of software products that will enhance your small business’ efficiency.  Office 365 is Microsoft’s fastest-selling product, with revenues growing over 100 percent each quarter—And small businesses like yours are signing on every day.

The most popular components of Office 365 include:

• Exchange Online (email);
• Office 365 ProPlus, the familiar desktop application products you use each day (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, OneNote and Lync and Outlook clients);
• SharePoint Online (cloud-based file sharing and storage); and
• Skype For Business (instant messaging, presence and web conferencing).

Here are 9 Super Reasons why your company may want to consider migrating to Microsoft Office 365.

• Seamless Coordination with the Tools You Already Know and Love.

Office 365 works seamlessly with the programs you already use, including Outlook, Word, Excel, OneNote, Publisher and PowerPoint. These tools provide the same great features you rely on, along with the powerful capabilities of Office 365.

With Microsoft Office 365, you can see if others are editing the document you’re using, synchronize documents, broadcast and share PowerPoint presentations, and check documents in and out of your online document library.

Plus, one of the benefits of being a Microsoft Office 365 subscriber is that you regularly get new and improved features without having to upgrade your software.

• Anytime, Anywhere Access

With Office 365 you and your employees can get access to your files regardless of where you are, or what you’re doing, letting you respond to important requests right away, from almost any location. The new world of work means both organizations and individuals are more mobile and must be empowered to work whenever and wherever they want.

Office 365 supports this new work dynamic with multiple-device access to emails, messaging, calendars, contacts and documents. It provides web-enabled access on almost any device, including PCs, Macintosh computers, iPhones, Android phones, and BlackBerry smartphones.

You and your staff can work anytime, from almost any location with the ability to access email and documents from your mobile device. This enables you to enjoy a consistent work experience and improve your effectiveness without being tied to a single location.

And if you’re traveling without access to Microsoft Office, Office 365 helps you view and edit documents from the most popular web browsers on PCs and Macintosh computers. Take control of when and where you work with Office 365.

• Easily Communicate and Collaborate Inside and Outside Your Organization

With Office 365 you can work with team members and others outside of your office. Create a password-protected portal to share large email files both inside and outside of your business, giving you a single location to find the latest versions of files or documents.

Enhance your work experience with Office 365 features like calendaring, contacts, online meetings, instant messaging, document collaboration and more. Send instant messages to colleagues and customers and invite them to participate in online meetings where you can review documents or take control of a desktop.

You’ll benefit from features like a 50-gigabyte (GB) mailbox that accommodates attachments up to 25MB, calendaring, contacts, online meetings, instant messaging, document collaboration and more. This proven service is powered by the same Microsoft email and collaboration products that businesses of all sizes have been using for decades.

• Simple to Learn, Straightforward to Use

Office 365 is easy to try, simple and straightforward to use. You don’t need to learn new software or jargon, or install complicated systems.  It’s very user-friendly, and operates through an easy-to-use web-based Admin Console portal that is accessible only to people you designate.

It also includes a service health dashboard and template-driven, drop-down tools tailored to your company needs.  Plus, it includes a step-by-step guidance if needed. See how easily your business can be “in the cloud” with benefits usually found only in larger organizations.

• Email, Collaboration, and Online Meeting Solutions

With Office 365, you can create a password-protected portal to share large, hard-to-email files both inside and outside of your organization, giving you a single location to find the latest versions of files or documents, no matter how many people are working on them.

Send instant messages to colleagues and customers and invite them to participate in online meetings where you can review documents or take control of a desktop. Plus, you can send large email attachments and store gigs and gigs of data, seamlessly in the Office 365 cloud.

Save files to the cloud for anywhere, anytime access with OneDrive for Business with a default storage from 25GB to 1TB per user.  All Office 365 ProPlus customers get 1TB of OneDrive for Business storage per user.

• Safe and Secure

Microsoft invests in making sure Office 365 is safe and secure to use. Microsoft’s data centers are enterprise level, best-in-class computing centers built with complete security.  Office 365 helps safeguard your critical data with geo-redundant, enterprise-grade reliability and disaster recovery with multiple datacenters and automatic failovers and a strict privacy policy.

Built-in security features monitor, anticipate and migrate threats to protect your data.  Top industry standards and regulations, including HIPAA FISMA and ISO 27001, meet and exceed security expectations.

You’ll use the same systems used by Microsoft and other enterprises worldwide to help protect email, documents, and networks. These systems scan your messages and documents for spam and malicious software 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Microsoft data centers help safeguard your data and are certified to meet multiple industry-standard certifications.

• 99.9% Financially–Backed Uptime Guarantee

Office 365 is built from the ground up for reliability, availability and performance with a guaranteed 99.9% uptime, financially backed service level agreement (SLA).

It safeguards your data with enterprise-grade reliability, disaster-recovery capabilities, data centers in multiple locations, and a strict privacy policy. The Microsoft data centers that deliver Office 365 are designed with redundant networks, power systems, servers, and continuous monitoring. These and other high availability safeguards provide the basis for the 99.9-percent uptime, money-back guarantee that are included with the service.

• Flexibility

Office 365 allows small businesses like yours to concentrate their limited business resources on what matters most—growing your business. Small businesses get enterprise-class cloud services that are easy to use, provide great communication and collaboration capabilities, and meet privacy, security and reliability standards the moment the service is activated.

Microsoft Office 365 also offers easy “pay as you grow” services. Pay-as-you-go pricing options give you the predictability and flexibility you need for your small business. It allows you to only use the services you need, cost-effectively, and adds value to your business.

You can sign up for a flexible plan that meets the needs of your business. Plus, other Office 365 components can simply be added through the administration console under the ‘purchase services tab.  Online versions of Visio Pro, Project Pro, Project Online, Project Lite, Dynamics CRM, Social Listening and Power BI are easily acquired through an online cart.

And for added flexibility, your Office 365 tenant can be set-up to distribute licenses to only those co-workers who need them.

• Professional Business Appearance

Using professional services like Office 365 tells potential customers that you’re serious about business. With Microsoft Office 365 you’ll project a professional image to all of your clients, partners and prospects. While being professional may be about efficiency and effectiveness, looking professional is all about appearance.

For example, you can impress your prospects by inviting them to a collaborative online meeting where you can review your latest proposal. With these state-of-the-art but easy-to-use collaboration, mail, and messaging services, you can set yourself apart from organizations that use free or ad-supported services.

A custom domain name further enhances your branding, and Office 365 includes design tools to easily create a professional, public-facing website in minutes. With Office 365, your business can look its best by having professional correspondence, marketing collateral, websites and video teleconferencing to deliver a favorable impression to others.

Whether your small business is engaged with existing customers or new prospects, Office 365 delivers the consistent attention to detail you need to always look your best and showcase your professional side.

With Office 365, you can take advantage of all these easy-to-use solutions and advanced features at a small-business price. It provides your small businesses the right cloud services to compete on the same level as your larger peers, and “punch above your weight” even in the most challenging markets.

Are you convinced that Microsoft Office 365 is right for your small business?  If so, contact BACS Consulting Group at [email protected] or (650) 887-4601. We have the expert migration assistance you need, along with great customer support. Our team is trained to solve your problems, to ensure your migrations go smoothly, and to keep your IT and small business running efficiently productively. That’s what we do best!

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