Early last month Microsoft introduced a preview of a new business solution in Office 365 branded as Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Teams is positioned as a holistic chat-centered work space in Office 365.
It's the hub for chats, calls, meetings, and private and group messages that are specific to teams. Teams is designed to compete against other online team-based collaborative cloud solutions like Slack.
Teams may be thought of the next evolution of building upon the foundation and canvas enabled by Office 365 Groups.
Microsoft Teams can now be toggled-on and used in your Office 365 environment, at No increase in your subscription cost!
How is Microsoft Teams a hub for teamwork?
Teams is completely integrated with the Office 365 suite of apps, and can provide one-click access to everything that team members may need. Chat, content, people, and tools all live in the same team workspace. To-do lists and project tasks can be created, tracked, and managed in Planner. SharePoint and OneNote are built in, and people can work in Office and other documents right in the app. Users can collaborate in multiple teams, and navigate and toggle easily between them.
What is a Team in Microsoft Teams?
In your company or organization, a Team is what you would like to make of it! A Team may be one of your departments, center around a product or service, a project, a customer service / support group, etc. You have the ability to define and create specific Teams as needed to enable business needs and requirements.
A Team's collaborative work is accomplished through a variety of different business processes. All Teams in your organization are inherently intertwined and linked with business processes, people, content, and different tools needed to accomplish jobs and projects. Microsoft Teams can serve as a technology enabler to streamline and improve existing processes, and to create new processes that were not possible before!
Microsoft Teams, a unification of existing and new tools into a Teams workspace enables "high velocity collaboration." A few inspirational examples of collaborative activities, and benefits and synergies that may be realized from leveraging Microsoft Teams in your organization include:
Sales
Close deals faster: get answers to customer questions, advice on objections and approvals
Spend more time selling: digitize status meetings, sales training, and expert Q&A sessions
Stay ahead of customers: know the latest company, product, and competitor news
Build a winning culture: share customer feedback and wins with valuable context
Update the account team with customer feedback and implications for account management
Marketing
Execute marketing campaigns and events flawlessly: coordinate tasks and deliverables, share updates across multiple stakeholders
Manage the creative process from concept to launch: share designs, gather feedback and approvals
Work closer with field marketers: keep the field in the loop, get their input and feedback
Build a creative team culture: share ideas, inspiration, and best practices
Project Management
Collaborate engineering and development across a distributed team
Streamline product launches and releases: coordinate tasks and deliverables, share status and updates
Speed up issue resolution: spin up digital war rooms for escalations and track progress
Engineering
Develop new products and orders faster across distributed teams: enable continuous communication and smooth handoffs between teams
Build a collaborative culture: discuss ideas and requirements, gather inputs and feedback in the open
Customer Support
Enable continuous knowledge-sharing: share known issues and fixes between shifts
Build a collective knowledge base: document customer FAQs and subject matter Q&A
Speed up issue resolution: troubleshoot critical issues together in various subject matter experts
Stay ahead of customers: know the latest product updates and customer offers
Do you want to learn more about Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft References:
Introducing Microsoft Teams—the chat-based workspace in Office 365: https://blogs.office.com/2016/11/02/introducing-microsoft-teams-the-chat-based-workspace-in-office-365/
Teams Client Apps: https://teams.microsoft.com/downloads to get the desktop apps. For mobile apps, go to the relevant mobile store for Google Play, Apple App Store, and Microsoft Store.
Microsoft Teams Tech Community: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams/ct-p/MicrosoftTeams
Customer Success Kit: Microsoft Download Center link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54244 Getting Started Guides for IT and Team Leaders, Microsoft Teams Announcement Template, Countdown template, Flyer template, Poster template, Tips and Tricks emails.
Meet Microsoft Teams: https://products.office.com/en-US/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software#
Microsoft Teams - Step-by-step intro for using, enabling, and managing the experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAqAtI6K7NY&feature=youtu.be
Teams In-the-News Articles by Industry Experts and Wannabe Experts:
Microsoft Teams vs. Slack: What's the Difference?:
Microsoft takes on Slack with workplace chat tool:
Microsoft officially announces Teams — and Slack should be very nervous: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-teams-vs-slack-2016-11
Microsoft to Launch Teams and Take On Slack: