We’ve been using Google Apps for over four years at Tbreak and have gotten quite comfortable with it. Back when we started the company, we were a total of 3 employees and Google was offering a free version of Google Apps which made the decision to use their services very easy.
So why switch now?
Over the years, the company has grown to 10 employees and Google started charging for Google Apps. The cost isn’t much of a factor- moving to Office 365 will probably cost us a bit more. However, with the expansion of staff, there is now a sales team, editorial teams, and an admin team. These divisions have different sets of requirements and the “one-size fits all” proposition doesn’t appeal as much any more.
Although we’ve been using Google Apps for emails and online activity, we are also using other tools for different tasks- Dropbox for file sharing, Excel for spreadsheets and Evernote for notes. Yes, Google offers some of these solutions, but sometimes that solution is not based on our requirements. For example, Google Sheets is nowhere close to Excel in terms of features and Evernote is available across all platforms. In other cases like Dropbox, it just happened before Google Drive came about and we never really migrated.
I see Google Apps as a “one-stop shop.” It’s incredible when a small team is working on the same page, but add divisions and individual requirements such as a robust spreadsheet for the sales team or an integrated workflow for editorial team and you start seeing the limitations.
On the surface, Microsoft Office 365 seems to have almost everything we are looking for (see what I did there.) But things don’t always turn out how you expect them to. That is particularly true with most things related to technology. Microsoft offers a free trial for Office 365 and I’ve gone ahead and signed up for it. This one month trial which is extendable by another month should give me enough time to decide if Microsoft’s platform is indeed the right platform for us to move to or not.
But before I start this multi-part blog, I want to set some goals on what we as an organisation want. Not only will this help us evaluate Office 365 on a specific basis but it would also give you an idea on what we’re looking for. Hopefully some of what we want aligns with what you’re looking for as well.
1) Mobile First, Cloud First: I’m not saying that Desktop Apps are dead but other than a handful of apps such as Microsoft Office and Adobe CS or Apple’s Final Cut Pro X, most of our time is spent on a browser or on mobile devices. I want this to be a key factor for our operations and I’m glad that we share Microsoft’s vision. We use a combination of Macs and PCs along with almost all kinds of mobile devices- iPhones, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone. Things need to work on all platforms.
2) Collaboration and Communication: The idea of moving away from Google Apps is to have divisions collaborate more tightly within themselves. This means that we should have access to each other on a one-to-one basis through IM as well as be able to work collaboratively on a project basis by sharing files, notes, schedules and conversations around them.
3) Shared Everything: Across the company, we need to have shared calendars, contacts and files so everything is available to everyone (with permissions) from whatever device they’re using. For example, a company-wide calendar would hold our meetings and events schedules as well as employee vacations. With contacts, we should be able to search for a company as well as its PR or Advertising agencies.
4) Extend: I realize that no out-of-the-box solution will be tailored to my exact requirements which is why I want extendibility in the platform we choose. In other words, we should be able to integrate it with other platforms such as SalesForce in case our company decides to use that in the future.
Those are some of the key requirements for us. There will definitely be more features that will come up as I put Office 365 to test but I think the ones I’ve mentioned above need to serve as building blocks. Over the next few weeks, you’ll see me cover all of these topics to help me figure out if Office 365 works for us or not. In the next blog, I’ll start with the plans Microsoft offers and the one I chose as well as go through the initial setup process.
I hope to have everything covered within a span of two months as that is basically the trial period offered by Microsoft for Office 365.
By Abbas Jaffar Ali
