If email data loss is a concern or you are frustrated you cannot simply share a calender with a staff member, look to Microsoft Exchange for a solution.
Many organisations don’t realise Exchange gives you capabilities beyond a more reliable email service. Exchange actually helps you implement a more collaborative environment and gives your staff more mobility to increase productivity. To learn how Microsoft Exchange can benefit your organisation, read on.
“Microsoft Exchange is software that can either be installed on your server or run as a hosted service. It manages your email, calendaring and has a variety of other capabilities, as well as collaborative features.” - Director of R&G Technologies, Mimi Tan.
Reliability
Without email service, your staff lose access to vital information and capabilities. The organisation relies on email access for conversation history, and efficient communication with internal staff, and clients and suppliers.
Way back when, email solutions like POP3 (supplied by many web hosting companies) were engineered so email was downloaded to local PC's instead of the server. However, doing so meant making local copies of emails and deleting the originals, meaning emails were only located on a specific device.
“The main reason you need Exchange is to centralise your emails so they can be backed-up effectively. If you're using a rudimentary POP3 model and your computer dies, then your emails are at risk of being lost” - CEO of R & G Technologies, Gordon Tan.
In addition, Exchange offers better capacity and assigned retention policy. Or in layman’s terms, you can send and receive a larger volume of email and specify how long you’d like to retain the email before it’s automatically deleted.
Microsoft Exchange can assist in the reduction of lost emails, and most importantly, minimises downtime due to email outages.
Related: 6 ways IT providers can help you minimise downtime
Collaboration
You’d be surprised what your organisation can achieve when you provide an environment, which streamlines and advances collaboration. Microsoft Exchange facilitates departments and teams working together with features like public folders, shared mailboxes, distribution groups and shared calendars.
Public folders provide shared access, giving you an efficient way of managing and organising shared information. Likewise, shared mailboxes save you the effort of forwarding emails around the organisation, since multiple staff members can access, read and send emails from a generic address. In addition, distribution groups make it quick and easy to send an email to all members of a group at once.
“The ability to have shared calendars between team members simplifies the process of scheduling meetings, events and other team appointments. Exchange is a powerful tool for increasing the productivity of your teams”.
Microsoft Exchange provides more efficient communication, collaborative scheduling and ultimately, better outcomes for your business. It makes it easy for staff to collaborate, resulting in a level of productivity staff can’t achieve on their own.
Related: 3 collaboration tools that can improve your team's productivity
Mobility
Very few people in today’s world are stuck behind a desk. Exchange gives you the freedom to access your email service from any device, anywhere in the world. Thus, minimising your productivity losses due to travel and maximising your workforce’s capacity at all times.
“When you use a POP model, the emails you downloaded from your web-hosting provider are only stored on that device. So if you go anywhere without that computer, or if the device fails, you’ve lost access to your company emails” - Gordon Tan.
Microsoft Exchange allows you to stay in touch with clients and team members anytime, anywhere. It lets you access your inbox, contacts, calendar and more, and synchronises with mobile devices to ensure your office productivity isn’t disrupted.
What Microsoft Exchange solutions are available?
You can install Microsoft Exchange on your own servers, or host it from the cloud. To determine the ideal solution for your business, look at the degree of control you require, your organisation’s size and strategy for the future.
Running Exchange on your own infrastructure gives you the highest level of control and customisation, including the ability to configure security and enforce compliance policies. However, it requires larger capital investment, and can be expensive when you need to upgrade hardware and software.
A hosted service requires you to pay per user, no installation or hardware is requiredand someone else is managing and monitoring it all for you. This solution is more suitable for SMBs as it provides access to enterprise systems and instant scalability for less money.
Whatever solution you opt for, the software is guaranteed to improve productivity by streamlining communication, collaboration and minimising downtime due to email outages. Frequent, reliable communication and mobile information access facilitates collaboration, and an organisation that seamlessly works together can accomplish things lone employees cannot.