Covid-19, which has impacted individuals and organisations around the globe, is now a reality in South Africa, and local businesses need to turn to technology that empowers unified communication, collaboration, and remote working in order to maintain productivity and continue operating under such restrictive conditions.

“Companies can mitigate risk by using platforms such as Microsoft Teams, which is fairly simple and straightforward to use, allowing people to chat, meet and share information seamlessly,” says Basha Pillay, business unit lead: modern platform at Altron Karabina. “Given that most individuals today use some form of social media and messaging platform, to learn how to use Teams is as simple as using one of those platforms.”

Pillay adds that, since Teams comes as part of Microsoft Office 365, it is much easier to deploy and use in conjunction with any or all other Microsoft products, while it has a number of out-of-the-box third-party integrations for other business tools.

“Teams forms an integral part of the Office 365 suite. Whomever is the administrator of the organisation’s tenant will need to ensure that all users have access and the allocated licenses needed to operate Teams. Teams is accessible across most devices whether they be PCs, Macs or mobile devices, so ensuring that users have the apps installed is another key thing that IT admins will need to drive,” says Pillay.

Microsoft is offering Microsoft Teams for free for the next six month, for organisations licensed for Office 365, you that already have Teams.