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The entirely cloud-based nature of Microsoft 365 and its availability on multiple devices make it easy to access familiar Microsoft productivity apps wherever you are: in the office, at home, or on the move. Having proved its worth during the pandemic, Microsoft 365 continues to be a significant enabler of many organisations' ongoing remote and hybrid working policies, thanks to its range of mobile, browser-based and desktop apps.
According to a Microsoft report, hybrid work is up seven points year over year (to 38%). But a successful remote or hybrid working policy depends on more than simply enabling people to access Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, join video meetings, and know their apps are always up to date. You need to consider:
How people collaborate and communicate with each other and their managers
How they find, access and share information
How many tools they have to switch between to get work done
How individuals can really work together as a team, no matter how dispersed they are
Fortunately, Microsoft 365 has a great deal to offer. It provides a secure, comprehensive cloud-based platform for efficient teamworking, and offers capabilities for digitalising business processes to fit your hybrid working environment. You also have choice about which Microsoft data centre hosts your data. By selecting a European data centre, you can be sure that all your data is hosted in a GDPR-compliant way.
"We create space for innovation - and Microsoft 365 is helping us to do that."
Kay Ernst
Head of IT, FISCHER Weilheim GmbH
Microsoft 365 incorporates a wealth of apps to enable smart, efficient and connected working in the cloud. Among the key apps: Microsoft Teams. Beyond facilitating video and audio communications, Microsoft Teams acts as a hub that provides secure access to other Microsoft and third-party apps (including enterprise content management) on any connected device. Using Microsoft Teams, you can:
Bring your people together across departments, time and geographical boundaries
Allow teams to chat, call, meet, collaborate and organise themselves
Enable professional tasks to be carried out remotely
OneNote. As well as acting as a digital notebook for individuals, OneNote can be used by teams to organise their work, keep records, collate content from other sources, and categorise information. SharePoint Online. Provides useful storage for shared files and documents, including those a team creates within Microsoft Teams. In addition, SharePoint Online allows:
Real-time collaboration on documents
Creation of a team website for navigating around team resources, and sharing news and other information
OneDrive. Allows individuals to store and retrieve their documents on any device. In addition, users can share documents and files from OneDrive storage with colleagues and third parties or during Microsoft Teams meetings, and copy documents from OneDrive into a Microsoft Teams SharePoint site. If you want to further enhance the way you manage teamwork, or you're ready to transform and digitalise business processes, there are further apps in the Microsoft suite to support you:
Microsoft Lists — for tracking information and managing work
Microsoft Planner — a simple visual way to organise teamwork and get tasks done
Microsoft Forms — an easy way to create surveys, polls and quizzes, and publish them, for example, live during Teams meetings
Power Automate — no-code workflow automation that lets you streamline tasks and turn processes paperless
Microsoft Power Apps — for rapidly building your own low-code apps
Microsoft Dataverse for Teams — a built-in, low-code data platform for relational data storage and more
As a Microsoft Global Managed Partner, Konica Minolta can help you get the best out of Microsoft 365 apps and the platform's extensive capabilities to help you increase teamworking efficiency and productivity, and take your business forward into the future. With Workplace One, organisations further receive a Microsoft 365 environment managed by Konica Minolta which means you don't have to worry about anything. Workplace One is based on Microsoft's 365 Business Basic licence. It further included managed backup services, proactive monitoring, and implementation of Microsoft’s Online Services (such as Exchange, Teams, OneDrive etc.). Microsoft 365 apps make content authoring and collaboration quick and easy, but information management is often overlooked. M-Files helps optimise your investment in Microsoft 365 by improving support for business processes and information governance. M-Files integrates into Microsoft 365 and acts as the single point of access for all enterprise data. Through the Microsoft interface, users can find, access and manage all connected data, across all repositories.
To reduce the environmental impact of its data centres, Microsoft has set itself a number of goals, which it intends to achieve over time using a variety of measures. Among them:
By 2025, Microsoft expects to power its data centres with 100% additional, new renewable energy generation that matches its electricity consumption on an annual basis.
By 2030, Microsoft will achieve 90% diversion of operational waste at data centres. Four of its data centres are already zero waste certified: Dublin in Ireland; and San Antonio, Quincy and Boydton in the US.
Data centre cooling operations consume a lot of water. By 2024, Microsoft will reduce water waste in its data centre operations by 95%.
Cement accounts for around 8% of global emissions. Microsoft is reducing how much cement it uses in its data centres by opting for 56-day rather than 28-day cure times.
In Europe, the Microsoft data centre in Sweden is the most advanced in terms of sustainability features:
It uses 100% carbon-free energy.
A 24/7 hourly energy matching is done.
It captures rainwater.
It is cooled with outside air only.
It is one of the first sites to use lower-carbon renewable fuel for backup power — Preem Evolution Diesel Plus. This is the world's first Nordic Eco-labelled diesel and nearly an equivalent reduction in net CO2 emissions compared with standard fossil diesel blends. In general, Microsoft is committed to being diesel free by 2030.
To learn more about Konica Minolta’s approach to sustainability, visit our sustainability webpages.
The CO₂ footprint of data that is generated during data storage or data transmission is not insignificant. The following application tips can therefore reduce data consumption:
Use cloud file sharing solutions such as Microsoft SharePoint Online instead of local network drives
Don't send attachments in emails, use the links from Microsoft OneDrive or SharePoint Online instead
Set automatic deletions of your Microsoft SharePoint Online files
If you would like to know more, read this blog article: Five ways to clean up your data ‘junk' and save energy
Leppäkoski is a versatile energy company in Finland providing electricity, district heat, natural gas and other energy solutions. The group consists of the parent company Leppäkoski Group Oy and its fully-owned subsidiaries Leppäkosken Sähkö Oy, Leppäkosken Lämpö Oy and Grid.vc Oy.
Elajo is one of Sweden’s leading electricity, mechanical engineering and energy companies, offering broad expertise and a knowledgeable staff of close to 900 employees.
Whether excavators, cranes or flatbed trucks, at FISCHER Weilheim, a German company from the construction and transport industries, everything is consistently organised under the supervision of the new foreman: Microsoft 365. It also proved possible to optimise and increase the efficiency of data flows between the individual business units.
At Melinda Steel, a Romanian steel products specialist, Microsoft 365 was implemented to provide secure, enterprise-grade communication and collaboration capabilities on a predictable and flexible pay-per-use basis.
Are you taking full advantage of Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365? A Microsoft 365 licence gives your business access to a range of Microsoft apps that help people create, connect and collaborate whether they're working at the office, at home or on the move. Are you sure you're using the full potential of your Microsoft 365 licence? Here are just some of the ways it could help you get even more done every day.
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