Which Microsoft 365 plan should your small business use?
We often find that many small business leaders are confronted with difficult choices when it comes to choosing which Microsoft 365 package that they should invest in. This typically results in a default choice of either the Basic or the Standard subscription. This is problematic due to the rise in remote work caused by the pandemic — Microsoft’s 365 Business Premium is the most ideal plan for small businesses, as it offers more advanced security and greater mobility.
The two most common subscriptions we find businesses using are: 365 Basic or Standard. These are great plans. Both subscriptions will offer you access to Teams, Exchange for your email, OneDrive, SharePoint and all the poplar applications you use every day at your organization. However, the key issues overlooked when business leaders subscribe to these plans is security and mobility.
Professionals today are looking to work from anywhere, at any time and especially, on any device. For instance, many people are using personal cell phones to connect to company email. And, with the pandemic, increasingly remote workers are accessing company information from their home computers. But here’s where problems can arise with the basic and standard plans: what is to prevent one from sitting down on their home computer, installing Microsoft Outlook, and synchronizing all their email. What happens if that employee leaves the company?
They can have a copy of that data from their personal device, and they can simply walk away with it. Also, you do not know who else is accessing that computer and the files on it and where that data could end up.
Microsoft’s 365 Business Premium was developed to address these contemporary security issues. For instance, if an employee is on their personal computer and they are trying to access their work email, they are not allowed to do it through the Outlook client, they must use webmail. Secondly, multi-factor authentication (MFA) must be enabled.
If your business needs some guidance on which Microsoft 365 plan to use and why, please contact us.