Supercharge Your Business. Getting Small Businesses Ready for 2025 with Microsoft 365
How Microsoft 365 is Empowering Small Businesses In the ever-changing world of productivity and collaboration tools, Microsoft 365 continues to shine as a vital tool for small businesses. With a treasure trove of applications designed to boost efficiency, security, and innovation, Microsoft 365 rolled out some game-changing features in 2024, earning high praise from industry experts. Last year was a rollercoaster for business owners and their customers. They faced rising inflation, tighter budgets, and the AI revolution. Through it all, Microsoft 365 was the trusty partner that helped businesses run smoothly and operate productively. The suite introduced exciting new features, integrated smart AI capabilities, and laid out a promising roadmap to tackle current trends and challenges. Recapping An Exciting 2024 Here are some notable new features we released in Microsoft 365 -- starting with Teams and Teams Phone: We introduced the Queues App in the fall, a Teams-native solution designed to empower organizations to manage Teams Phone engagements directly from within Teams. With it, they can manage call queues, auto attendants, get real-time metrics, and see reporting – to ensure they’re conducting customer engagement efficiently. We introduced Shared Calling, which makes a single phone number and calling plan sharable by a group, so teams can better manage calls in coordination. We enhanced survivable calling with the Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA), a backup solution designed to keep your phone services running smoothly, even during network outages. It now supports call transfer, forwarding, and incoming calls during network outages. In Microsoft Excel, we added some powerful updates: The ability to automatically sync data from Forms to Excel for the web. In real-time, responses can be synced between the two apps, ensuring data is always up-to-date. There’s seamless integration so if you go to an active Form and the Responses page, you can click “Open results in Excel” to create an Excel worksheet in OneDrive to do deeper manipulation of your data. The addition of checkboxes that can drive and be driven by existing Excel functions. With Interactive Checkboxes, they automatically check or uncheck based on the value of another cell. And finally, we integrated Python into Excel for users to have the ability to manipulate data in the familiar Excel environment but now with access to powerful Python's libraries and plots to make even deeper analysis possible. We made generally available a brand new Outlook: It has an exciting, newly redesigned interface, new productivity features, and integration with Copilot. Small and medium-sized businesses currently on Microsoft 365 are already moving to it but the choice to keep using classic Outlook will still be available. To help small businesses conserve their marketing budget, we introduced Microsoft Clipchamp in the fall of 2023 and Microsoft Designer in the summer of 2024. Clipchamp is a user-friendly video editor for creating professional-quality videos without needing technical skills. In Clipchamp, we rolled out over 100 pre-built templates, transitions, noise-suppression, background removal, auto-compose, and text-to-speech – saving users tons of time in making videos that may have taken many hours to do before. Designer is a powerful, AI image-generating and graphic design tool that can help any small business create professional-quality visuals with ease – without needing technical skills. Key updates were: We integrated Designer into Word and PowerPoint so users can generate images and use those images within these apps. In addition, Designer will suggest design templates for your slides. A Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription is needed and unlocks the use of Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps. And lastly, in 2024, we empowered SMBs to see how AI could make them more productive by expanding Microsoft Copilot into our popular apps like Outlook, Word, Excel, and Teams. Users can now summarize emails, generate insights in Word and Excel, and unlock powerful meeting insights in Teams. Among many new AI-powered features, we introduced Intelligent Call Recap in Teams which serves up AI-powered insights and recaps for your VoIP and PSTN calls in Teams, helping you stay on top of important details. Microsoft’s Continued Recognitions With Analysts and Customers As a testament to our excellence, Microsoft was once again crowned a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications for the sixth year in a row! Here’s what Gartner called out: Microsoft Teams is the top pick for businesses, especially when using it for internal collaboration. With a super reliable 99.999% uptime, it has solid telephony services to keep you connected. Teams is perfect for global cloud telephony, offering flexible PSTN options. Plus, Gartner called out our Operator Connect feature, which allows businesses to connect their existing telephony services directly to Teams, is now available in over 96 countries, including India. Copilot in Teams and Teams Premium brings cutting-edge AI features to meetings, chats, and calls. Gartner said that for those seeking the latest in AI, Microsoft is rapidly innovating. Teams now has over 350 million monthly active users. This growth highlights the platform’s continued popularity and widespread adoption among businesses worldwide. If you haven’t tried running your meetings on Teams, there’s no better time to. And over on G2 Reviews, Microsoft 365 currently has 4.6 out of 5 stars. Users like its ease of use, seamless integrations, and the extensive suite of tools it offers. Small businesses have praised the platform’s ability to streamline workflows and supercharge productivity. TechRadar also recognized Microsoft 365 as “the original and best office productivity suite” in December 2024, giving it 4.5 out of 5 stars. We’re thrilled that they said: “What ensured that MS Office became a market leader is the comprehensive way data can be covered by different applications and moved between them, making working more efficient and hassle-free.” Transforming Operations: How ICG Build Scaled with Microsoft 365 ICG, a startup construction firm, has successfully leveraged Microsoft 365 to establish and streamline its entire operations from day one. By utilizing Excel for budgeting, Word and PowerPoint for creating branded templates, Outlook for managing emails, Power BI for data visualization, and Teams for communication and collaboration, ICG has been able to scale its business efficiently. Here are some insights from their experience: Nick Masci, Principal & Co-Founder at ICG, shares: “Having everything in Microsoft 365 makes finding information fast and easy. Microsoft 365 has been instrumental in setting up our entire operations, from budgeting in Excel to managing emails in Outlook.” Melissa McEwen, Principal & Co-founder at ICG, adds, “Using Microsoft 365, we’ve been able to create branded templates in Word and PowerPoint, which has streamlined our client presentations and enhanced our professional image.” These testimonials highlight the transformative impact of Microsoft 365 on ICG’s operational efficiency and client engagement. Navigating 2025 Together Small businesses are in for another exciting ride in 2025 as they face trends like the continued integration of AI into our lives, a shift to returning to the office, and the continued need to be as efficient as possible. Microsoft 365 is here to support you with tools that boost productivity like Copilot; Teams and Teams Phone to support all work models, and powerful features that come included in our core apps like Design Ideas in PowerPoint that gives you multiple layout and design options to help you get your new slide started. Curious to learn more? You can read more about how to choose the right plan here. Are you a small or medium business owner/decision maker currently using Microsoft 365? We'd like to hear from you! We invite you to apply to join the Microsoft 365 SMB Customer Advisory Board. Applications accepted until February 28th, 2025. See aka.ms/SMBCAB for more details.NOW ON DEMAND | Two Copilot and M365 for SMB Community offerings (Webinar and AMA)
We’ve got two upcoming public events for you. We’re ready to share, show, and engage! We got news, announcements, insights into using Microsoft Lists, and set to answer a lot of questions across Copilot, Teams, SharePoint, and more.This National Small Business Week, make sure everyone in your company understands AI
Whether you are running a startup or an already thriving small business, harnessing AI-driven solutions will help you discover new opportunities, streamline operations, and make data-driven decisions with confidence. Understanding and exploring the possibilities of AI is essential for small businesses and key to unlocking growth, driving innovation, and maintaining a competitive edge. The first step is understanding the potential of AI for your business. Microsoft has developed several online resources to help. In recognition of National Small Business Week, we have curated a list of those resources that may be helpful for small business professionals who want to get started with AI. Establish an AI foundation Start your AI journey by visiting the Microsoft WorkLab and examining a rich collection of content that addresses the real-world scenarios of how AI is impacting work today. New articles are regularly added that will help you understand not just AI’s high-level capabilities, but also the nuances of AI and how to directly apply AI to your day-to-day work. Key resources include: Up-to-date market research on all the ways that AI is impacting work, like our latest, the AI Data Drop. This study provides insights into how employees feel about AI and how long it takes most employees to build effective AI habits. Regular podcasts with business leaders, like our recent discussion with Bryan Hancock, McKinsey’s Global Talent Leader, on the different ways that managers can unlock AI’s potential for their teams. In-depth guides that detail how AI can help the different parts of your business, such as How Sellers Can Use AI to Better Engage with Customers and How Marketers Can Use AI to Unlock Breakthrough Creativity. Build your AI skills When you're ready to build a deeper AI skill, you explore the Microsoft AI Learning Hub. You’ll find a variety of tools to help you go from understanding AI to preparing for it. You can learn the mechanics of using the technology and even how to build it into your own apps and services. Start with the learning journey for Business Users, which is foundational for getting an underlying understanding of AI, and then move into a more detailed guidance on how to use and implement its capabilities. If you’re an IT professional, look at the learning journey for IT Professionals, which provides a thorough grounding on the particulars of AI adoption, deployment, and small business concerns, like data classification and regulatory considerations. To define your own path, get skilling recommendations based on your job responsibilities and objectives. No matter where you want to go, you can use the AI learning assessment to define a customized learning journey to get you there. Put AI to work To put your AI skills into practice or if you’re already using Copilot for Microsoft 365, visit the Microsoft Copilot Lab. This site provides easy, visual introductions into what Copilot is and how it helps you do more no matter which Microsoft 365 app you are using. These tools are designed for professionals that need a fast, tactical grounding so they can benefit from AI every day. One example is the prompt writing guide, which explains how to write effective prompts so Copilot can deliver exactly what you need. This toolkit teaches the art and science of prompting. It walks through a series of easy initial prompting exercises like writing an AI-powered email or creating an image, so you’ll understand how to edit a prompt to tailored it to your scenario. Microsoft Learn has a series of freely available, advanced courses to help you gain a deeper understanding of Copilot, how it works with the apps in Microsoft 365 and best practices for everyday use. Get started National Small Business Week may be an annual event, but you can build your AI skills year-round. Join the Microsoft SMB Tech Community to network with other professionals using Copilot. You can come here anytime to ask questions, get help, keep up with the latest AI news specific to small and medium-sized businesses and find out about upcoming online or local events.How Microsoft Teams + Microsoft Loop can make your meetings better
Meetings are an important way to work together, helping you to connect with others and share information easily and quickly. But if your meetings are not always very effective, you’re in good company. Many small and medium-sized businesses struggle to optimize precious face-to-face time—you may end up having a meeting to discuss results from the previous meeting or leaving meetings with no clear outcomes at all. Collaborative Notes in Microsoft Teams can help. With Collaborative Notes you can organize agendas, take meeting notes, and track tasks together. And because Collaborative Notes are Microsoft Loop components, they automatically sync across all the places you share them. Let’s take a closer look at how a business can use Collaborative Notes. It's all about the agenda An agenda is important for a great meeting. But running a business can be busy. How can you make an agenda, incorporate feedback from the other participants and share it before the meeting? To start a Collaborative Note, click “add an agenda” when creating a meeting in Teams. Once you send the meeting request, everyone invited can easily add, edit, and reorder agenda items. This approach saves you time and effort, but it also results in more productive meetings because it ensures that the most important topics are addressed. Since Collaborative Notes are Loop components you can work on them across other Microsoft 365 web apps, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Whiteboard. Perhaps your business partner can’t attend the meeting, but you’d still like her input on the agenda. Share the Collaborative Note with her in an email and as she provides her input in Outlook, you’ll see her updates in Teams. "When we generate the agenda for an event, like a webinar, it’s very different when we use Loop. With the agenda component, we can collect ideas and ask for feedback before the event. Those requests are just dropped into everyone’s flow of work, so they’re easy to answer and it makes for a far better result than we’d normally get." - Vesku Nopanen, Principal Consultant for the Future of Work at Sulava. Make meetings work for you During a meeting, any participant can use Collaborative Notes to check off or re-order agenda items and take notes and assign follow-up tasks in one central place. For example, you might be preparing a customer pitch or a sales campaign that requires collaborating with people from across your business. During your kickoff meeting, each participant can capture notes, follow-up tasks and timelines related to their role—or tag items for other participants—while seeing everyone else’s notes, too. In the task list, you can use “@” to assign people a task and set a due date. And if you prefer a more visual task list, you can turn your list into a board view. Because Collaborative Notes are Loop components, you can add links and other components directly in the notes. Coordination like this across your business can help make sure that all key aspects of a project are well managed and allow your team to work more effectively. "It’s so cool that whenever I have a Teams Meeting, I can start collaborating without having to think about where the meeting notes should go. I can start work inside Teams and then continue with the same folks or loop in other colleagues if needed." - Karoliina Partanen, Chief Future Scientist at Sulava. Keep the momentum going Now that you’ve had your most productive meeting yet, don’t stop there! Even after the meeting is over, Collaborative Notes help you keep the progress going. Tasks and deadlines created in Collaborative Notes or other Loop components automatically sync with Microsoft Planner and the Microsoft ToDo App. This helps keep everyone informed, accountable and organized. Get started with Collaborative Notes and Loop today If you’re a Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium customer, you can try out Collaborative Notes right now in Microsoft Teams. Find out more about how it works: Take meeting notes in Microsoft Teams. Business Standard and Business Premium customers can also try Loop anytime since it’s part of your subscription. If Collaborative Notes are the start of your project, check out the Loop app where you can create a workspace for all the people and moving parts of your project to come together. It’s the perfect place for your whole team to plan and create collaboratively. Go further with Copilot for Microsoft 365 If you have Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium, you can also purchase Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 as an add-on; Microsoft 365 Business Basic customers will also be able to purchase Copilot. With Copilot in Teams, you can get an AI-driven summary of your Teams meeting and add it to your Collaborative Notes. You can continue using Copilot in the Loop app where you can create and summarize important information quickly and easily. And if these new capabilities seem like something your business needs, but you’re not a Business Standard or Premium customer, then you can change that right now by checking out our Microsoft 365 plans and choosing the one that’s best for you. Resources Find the right Microsoft 365 business plan for your business. Learn more about how to set up and use your Microsoft 365 subscription and find tips and templates to help you accomplish your business tasks. Get free resources, tech training, and guidance to keep your business thriving and growing. Partners can access training resources, customer decks and deployment checklists to do more with Microsoft 365.
