7 Ways to Work Smarter in the Cloud: Parts 5 through 7

7 Ways to Work Smarter in the Cloud: Parts 5 through 7

Welcome to the final part of the Office 365 platform, integrated with Microsoft ERP and CRM blog series.

Meetings, Simplified

Meetings are an important part of business, providing valuable opportunities for people to brainstorm, collaborate, strategize, and share information. According to information compiled by Atlassian, most employees attend 62 meetings a month, including the 31 hours they spend in unproductive meetings. Those unnecessary meetings carry a high price, costing US businesses $37 billion annually.

New communication and collaboration tools like Skype for Business make it easy to conduct modern meetings that are more efficient and productive by providing familiar, easy-to-use features plus enterprise-grade security, compliance, and control.

It can be tough for growing businesses to get everyone together in the same room. Using Skype for Business HD video calling, co-authoring, app sharing, and presentations, the members of your team who need to actively participate can do so from anywhere. Host or join a meeting from any of your favorite devices- whether you’re running on iOS, Android, or Windows-and easily present, share, and collaborate on documents or a virtual whiteboard during the meeting.

Need to ping someone for a quick question? Use Skype for Business IM, and then add voice, video, and screen sharing as the conversation evolves. With just a click or two, you can initiate an IM chat, share documents, or set up an online meeting where team members in different locations can meet face-to-face and view the same information, without spending the time or money to travel to meet in person.

Turn Your Data Into Valuable Insights

An increasing number of businesses are using business intelligence (BI) solutions to spot trends, identify risks, and find new opportunities. One-click forecasting in Office 2016 helps SMBs quickly turn historical data series into an analysis of future trends. New Treemap and waterfall charts in Office 2016 make it easier to visualize complex data.

Use these new tools to connect, view, and shape data from multiple sources, including tables from websites, unstructured sources like Hadoop, and services like Salesforce. The improved Power Pivot features can help you map different data sets  with drag-and-drop ease, and calculate hundreds of millions of rows of data with the new analysis functionality.

By using business intelligence tools, your business can transform dense company data into easily digestible insights and make informed decisions to help you help maintain a a competitive edge. According to a study by IBM and MIT Sloan Management Review, organizations that achieve a competitive advantage with data analytics and business intelligence are 2.2 times more likely to substantially outperform their industry peers.

Co-author Documents in Real Time

Competitive markets move fast, and businesses that rise to the top do too. To keep up with the pace, employees often need to work together on the same documents, such as sales reporting spreadsheets and marketing plans. An important collaboration feature of productivity tools like Office 2016 and Office Online is real-time co-authoring, which makes it possible for you and your team to edit and contribute to documents at the same time. These cloud-based features automatically save as you go. When you work together on a Word document, will see everyone’s edits to text and formatting exactly when they are made. Use the version history to refer back to snapshots of the document throughout the editing process. Because Office 365 supports mobility and flexible work styles, it doesn’t matter whether you and your team members are working on the web, a desktop, a laptop, or a mobile device. Every change will be synced in the document, automatically saved to the cloud, and made visible to the team.

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Steve’s been with SMB Suite since 1998 and has been involved with nearly every aspects of the Company’s business as a strategist, professional services executive, cloud solutions architect, and senior consultant. In his current role, Steve is responsible for SMB Suite’s revenue and oversees the execution of ERP, CRM and BI projects for customers across a broad range of industries. Steve combines his expertise in MS Dynamics GP, CRM and other Microsoft products with a strong foundation in accounting and business to identify gaps and streamline customers’ processes. Prior to co-founding SMB Suite, Steve was previously Corporate Controller for MEHLE Behr and, prior to that, Audit Senior for Ernst & Young. Steve holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Jeremy is responsible for SMB Suite’s technology vision, strategy and implementation and is the architect of the Company’s Dynamics Cloud Platform. Highly adept in every facet of managed services, ERP systems and e-commerce platforms, Jeremy’s expertise spans the implementation and support of business and financial software solutions, as well as the customization and integration of SMB Suite’s cloud ERP technology stack. He holds numerous Microsoft and industry-related certifications, and was primarily responsible for designing the Company’s progressive business services platform in the early days of the Cloud. Prior to SMB Suite, Jeremy served as the financial analyst, systems administrator, and information systems liaison for a $2 billion financial services corporation.

Monty is responsible for SMB Suite’s day-to-day operation and, most importantly, its customers. As a leader, motivator and mentor, Monty creates loyal high performance teams willing to “walk through walls” to accomplish their goals. Prior to SMB Suite, Monty served as President of The Bradshaw Group (TBG), a global distributor, manufacturer, and repair facility for digital printers. In this role, he was the Company’s ambassador to its most important domestic, European and Latin American customers and TBG achieved a best-in-class Net Promoter Score of 74 for its superb customer satisfaction. Prior to TBG, Monty served as the General Manager of Sam’s Clubs three highest grossing U.S. stores and was named Regional Operator of the Year in 1999. Monty holds a BBA in Marketing from Texas Tech University and is an active member of Business Navigators. He has been active in Vistage International, Executives in Action, the Dallas/Fort Worth Retail Executives Association, as well as, A.P.I.C.S., the leading professional association for supply chain and operations management. Monty also volunteers with Hunger Busters and ManeGait, a therapeutic horsemanship organization.

David is a proven financial and information technology professional with expertise in providing business accounting software and computing solutions. He began his career by starting and managing a successful independent consulting practice for several years. He then launched the local systems consulting unit of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneurial Services Group, leading the office into the hi-tech consulting arena. After successfully developing the unit for Ernst & Young, David founded NextCorp (which became SMB Suite in 2013) to serve the business software needs of clients throughout the US. David has made SMB Suite one of the best cloud ERP providers in the industry. In addition to being a successful entrepreneur and leader, he is a software and technology specialist, holding certifications in various Microsoft and other technologies.