It’s safe to say that businesses of various sizes have suffered quite a bit in the past two years! With seemingly never-ending lockdowns and Covid numbers on the rise once again, it looks like the way corporates used to work isn’t going to be valid any time soon.

However, the major loss fell upon small businesses, where the strategy was based on human contact and meeting in person. That’s why we witnessed the rise of many conferencing tools since companies decided to send everyone home to work remotely.

Now you have to ask yourself as a small business owner:” How much do I have to invest in these applications and tools, and do they offer all I need?”

Well, Microsoft surely answered these questions with lanching Teams Essentials, which was designed and aimed to target and help small businesses continue their work in a world of lockdowns.

Teams Essential is built for small businesses

Again, this new application is designed mainly for small businesses, however, you don’t have to be a tech-savvy company to use it! Now restaurants, retailers, and various services providers can easily meet, collaborate, communicate and serve customers in a new way.

Not to mention that nonprofits, religious organizations, schools, and even community groups also struggled and continue to struggle to collaborate effectively especially during lockdowns. These organizations and small businesses need to keep the business running and Teams Essentials makes this possible with no IT expertise, or the need to call an IT team to set things up.

While the free version of Microsoft Teams is still available, Teams Essentials offers extended limits like longer meetings and more storage.

With that being said, let’s dive into the features that make this version the solution you need!

Host professional meetings and control time!

In this global situation, it seems very concerning to work closely with partners and customers. However, Teams Essentials brings existing Teams capabilities together with the addition of features specifically designed for small businesses and community groups:

1.   Extend Meetings Time

Now you can have meetings that last for 30 hours without worrying about running over the time limit.

2.   Large Meeting Capacity

Teams Essentials allows you to host meetings with up to 300 people at once, you can bring everyone into the same virtual room!

3.   Calendar Integration

You can integrate with Outlook calendar as well as Google calendar. This means you can use existing calendaring tool to stay on schedule and manage your meetings seamlessly.

4.   Simple Yet Easy Invitations

You can add people to participate in a meeting through their email address, where they will receive a meeting invitation with a link to join, and if they don’t have Teams to join, the meeting will open directly in the browser with no sign-up or installation required.

5.   Interactive Meetings

Teams Essentials provides many tools, like meeting lobby, virtual background, Together mode, live closed caption, live reactions, and many more that will allow you to host engaging and interactive meetings.

Connect existing tools and store more!

With Teams Essentials you’ll have a single solutions for chats, meetings, coordination and saving time, and most importantly keeping the conversations in context. It also includes tools to work effectively with anyone on anything, such as Office web applications, file sharing, group chats, task management and more:

1.   Additional Cloud Storage

Teams Essentials offer you storage space up to 10 GB which is twice the space available in the free version of Teams.

2.   Ongoing Chats

The conversation doesn’t end when the meeting ends! Teams Essentials will help you keep the context with persistant conversations.

3.   Small Business Group Chat Template

In a blink of an eye, you are now able to start group projects and host meetings with anyone and anywhere, assign tasks, and even create polls to receive feedback quickly.

4.   Chat, Meet, and Collaborate With Anyone

Taking chat and collaboration experience to the next level! Whether you are working with someone within or outside your organization, using the Teams application or dialling in, you’ll have everything in one place.  There’s no need to jump between applications when you’re working on a project with an outside company or an individual off-premises.

5.   Mobile Chat Dashboard

In any group or one-on-one chat, you can just click on dashboard view to access all shared content like files, photos, links,  and documents in organized categories.

Supporting small Businesses

Don’t overthink the cost and how much you’re investing in your business’s tools! Microsoft Teams Essentials offers the most value with the best price.

Offering the richest communication features at the lowest price of just 4$ per user per month, with outstanding value for small companies and community groups.

Not to mention that Teams Essentials is backed up by Microsoft and runs on Azure Cloud, which means high-level security, reliability, best performance and support.

What Are You Waiting For?

Investing the right amount in the right tool is essential for small businesses, and that’s what Microsoft had in mind with the new application.

Ctelecoms is a proud Microsoft partner in Saudi Arabia offering the best-in-class services to clients. Now we can support you when moving to Teams Essentials, just follow the link: https://www.ctelecoms.com.sa/en/Form15/Contact-Us