Is Microsoft Teams the right collaboration tool for my business?
If you’re a real estate business looking for the best collaboration tool, Paul’s story offers great value.
“Paul”, a real estate sales and property management business owner, was concerned about his clients’ information privacy. Being risk-averse, and faced with the stress and challenges of his growing business, he was keen on selecting the collaboration tool that is reliable and runs smoothly. After all, he had to keep an eye on sales targets, communicating with the team and third parties, employees’ performance, industry best practices, and legislative changes.
All he required was the right collaboration tool for the business that ensures the best collaboration among all to build brand reputation and achieve a sustainable business structure. During his research to find the answer to “Is Microsoft Teams the right collaboration tool for my business?”. Paul found the right solution.
Say Hello to Microsoft Teams
The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly driven people towards Microsoft services, especially the Microsoft Teams. According to Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, Microsoft Teams has acquired 115 million active users a day; which is a 50 percent hike (75 million users) from the last six months. Aternity, a digital experience management firm, revealed that Microsoft Teams outweighed Zoom in terms of usage between February and June 2020. According to a CIO survey, Microsoft Teams is the leading virtual collaboration market.
Is Microsoft Teams the Right Collaboration Tool for Real Estate Sales Agent & Property Managers?
In continuation of Paul’s case, how did he realize that Microsoft Teams is the right collaboration tool for his real estate and property management business?
Paul used the following criteria to assess the available choices.
| Problem | Investigate | Shortlist | Evaluate | Convert | |
| What happens | Complaints from staff | Outsource? Insource? Does the company/person have the skills to manage our requirements?How much time/$ is lost |
Gather info Shortlist candidates Recommendations Experience in reducing downtime and cost for peers |
Contact company Check price Check turnaround for implementation Staff experience |
PurchaseTrial period? Check turnaround time from purchase to operational |
| Concerns | Is IT stable? Microsoft Teams: Yes Can I lose access to client information? Microsoft Teams: No Can I lose control of information Microsoft Teams: No |
Will the solution be efficient? Microsoft Teams: Yes Does this provide the least turnaround time and limit interruption? Microsoft Teams: Yes |
Who knows our needs? Do they have a good reputation for delivering what they say? |
Does this require time investment from me? Can they scale with my company? Are they reliable and secure? |
When can they start? Will they be proactive? |
Looks familiar to your business? Then it’s the time to dig into Microsoft Teams!
What is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams is a collaborative communications software designed for small businesses, big enterprises, and individuals such as freelancers, students, clients, and teachers. For anyone working with others on files, particularly those using Office 365, Teams serve as the best platform to get the job done.
Microsoft Teams features both fundamental and advanced communication features including text, VoIP, video chat, configuration capabilities with Office and SharePoint, and a user-friendly interface. Microsoft Teams is suitable for workplaces of any size to meet, share and work on files together on a real-time basis with a desktop app, a functional web-based app, or a mobile app.
Being in the real estate business, lots of your communication is with the outside parties. Microsoft Teams address this challenge too. You can expect a huge amount of business through Teams. It’s easy to send anyone outside the business a quick one-time-only invite to your private meeting, so you just get a Teams link for your next video call. It’s that simple and quick!
How Do Microsoft Teams Make the Right Collaboration Tool for Your Business?
At its gist, Teams simplifies and classifies all the interpersonal interactions happening in a business among employees that are to be communicated digitally. Beyond the business context, it can be used by any group doing anything needing digital communication and collaboration.
- Manage Day to Day Activities (Individual & Group basis)
Microsoft Teams allows you to manage most of your workday activities, which are usually scattered in different windows and platforms, in just one place. You can call, chat, share, and collaborate on content and files, and even integrate the third-party applications that you use to manage your business processes. Space can be configured to serve a specific group’s needs.
- Be Connected 24/7
Microsoft Teams is keeping you connected whenever you are. Even if you travel a lot, you can still chat with coworkers, attend meetings, access files on-the-go and easily change devices when appropriate. Through Microsoft Teams you can have either one-on-one chats or group communications. You can easily add participants to your conversations.
- Integration with Apps
There are a lot of useful apps that can be added to each conversation such as polls and others
- Real-time File Sharing & Editing with Live Chat Options
Every separate chat area includes a space for file sharing and storage. The files can be reviewed and edited directly there without the need to be downloaded. Team members can choose whether to do this in Teams, in the Desktop app, or a browser, but the file will always be saved to the source. The chat area is always present, so the team members can converse while reviewing or editing a document.
- Remotely Accessible
You can join a conversation no matter your location, do calls or video chat, and schedule meetings directly in Teams. When adding persons to a group chat, you have the option to choose whether to include previous chat history or not.
- More Efficiency
Microsoft Teams is offering flexibility in how to communicate. It is bringing teams together to drive efficiency and productivity.
- Progress Monitoring & Meeting Deadlines
Microsoft Teams can help with managing projects and workgroups by keeping everyone aligned so the project stays on track. It allows the teams to have regular meetings, upload schedules, share and edit documents, assign and track tasks.
- Channeling
The Team area includes different channels in which you can split the different parts of the project the team is working on. The chat option is still present, but here it is topical and enables the team to discuss each part of the project separately.
- Planner Plans the Work well
In Microsoft Teams you can easily assign tasks for your team by using the Planner application. You can add meeting notes to each channel or integrate Power Bi to enable reporting and analytics.
- Integration Capabilities
Microsoft Teams is extensible and capable of making sure that you have all the tools that you need to make your internal business processes work. It is tailoring your workspace to include what you need. You can easily integrate and manage Microsoft and 3rd party apps as tabs, add bots that work on your team’s behalf, and build integrations to existing business processes.
Concerned About the Cost Factor?
No need to worry!
For no cost at all, real estate owners can create a business entity in Teams and invite up to 300 people. Members of your business can be clustered into teams or channels with group audio and video calling capabilities and 10 GB of cloud storage in total (besides 2 GB per person).
Moreover, with almost every Microsoft app, you may also connect Teams to apps from Google, Evernote, Adobe, Trello, and hundreds more.
Microsoft Teams is a cost-effective collaboration tool that saves you from the day-to-day frustration of a real estate business including poor communication, not getting what was promised, poor response time, lack of understanding of the collaboration system, and lack of team members’ accountability.
With stable connectivity, advanced integration capabilities, and highly secure encrypted infrastructure, Microsoft Teams is the right collaboration tool for your real estate and property management business.
