You order a package from Amazon. The next day you check your email to determine when it will be delivered and see a message that the item has left the warehouse and will arrive today.
Or
You are the maid of honour at your best friend’s wedding, and you are planning her bridal shower. You invite all the guests via email, so that you can easily track who’s attending when they RSVP.
Or
It’s the end of the month, and you get an email from your ISP with your internet bill.
Or
You are hiring a new Marketing Coordinator, and all applications are sent to you via email.
What’s one thing in common in each of these situations? They ALL require the use of your email. Email is considered the backbone of many businesses. You use it to communicate with your partners, vendors, customers, colleagues, and your family and friends. And without it, your business could be in trouble.
When email first entered widespread use, everyone had their own in-house server to host their email. That meant that every business either had to hire someone internally to configure and manage their server infrastructure, hire a third-party, or rely on the “techiest” member of their team. The first two options are expensive, while the third option is unsustainable, and means that your employee can’t focus on their primary responsibilities.
And besides those considerations, hosting your own email has several downsides. If you experienced a server crash or hardware failure, you would be without email for at least a day or two – and that’s assuming your configuration is backed up and could be loaded on a new piece of hardware right away. That’s a scary thought for most managers and business owners.
Without email, most businesses can’t effectively process orders, take on new customers, or service their current customers. So, you need to consider not just the cost of the hardware, software, and support, but also the direct cost associated with lost productivity and sales.
Luckily, since those days, email has evolved tremendously. These concerns were addressed by Microsoft when they announced their cloud hosted email solution Office 365. Office 365 is essentially a monthly subscription for email and Microsoft applications – depending on the package you select.
Office 365 isn’t for everyone, but it does offer a number of benefits. The 3 top benefits of Office 365, which we cover in the video below, are: security and uptime, the ability to work anywhere, and access to collaboration tools.
Watch our Tech Connect video now to learn more about Office 365, its benefits, the options available to you, who should consider it, and how it can help your business lower capital costs, and downtime.
If you are considering using Office 365, and want more information, please give us a call at (416) 966-3306, or send an email to [email protected] and someone from our office will be in touch to assist.