Of all the collaboration solutions on the market, Microsoft Teams (MS Teams or Teams) is the most robust. With several features that promote greater teamwork and more efficient communication, Teams is the platform your company will want to invest in to enhance organisational performance.
From February 2023 onwards, Microsoft will make a new upgrade – Microsoft Teams Premium – widely available, providing you with additional features that will take your workplace’s collaboration to new places. But with the innovative Teams Standard readily available, it can be difficult to see which version of Teams is the right one for your business.
In order to simplify this process and choose the best solution for you, you need to be aware of each version’s features and what they mean for your company.
What is Microsoft Teams Premium?
Teams Premium is an add-on that makes it easier for organisations and their employees to coordinate on projects. Premium can seamlessly integrate with other workplace applications to streamline procedures within a cohesive, fully functional environment.
The main selling point of Teams’ Premium licensing is its ability to offer you more ownership over the program, from tailored branding in meetings to more intuitive webinar organisation.
A list of Microsoft Teams Premium features
Premium supports a variety of features that build upon MS Teams’ foundations for greater functionality and user ownership.
Some of these features include:
- Advanced meeting protection – applies extra security measures (for example, watermarks) to Teams’ meetings, giving you peace of mind knowing that your virtual meetings are more secure. At the same time, if your business uses Microsoft 365 E5, Premium allows you to take your Microsoft Purview Information Protection sensitivity labels and apply them to your meetings.
- Advanced webinars – offers registration waitlists and manual approvals, virtual green rooms, automatic reminder emails, and visibility management to upgrade your webinars and make them easier to manage.
- Live translations – uses artificial intelligence (AI) to translate 40 spoken languages within meetings. Translations are shown as captions.
- Intelligent recap – uses AI to help you keep track of meetings.
- Advanced virtual appointments – offers additional features (such as text message reminders) that streamline appointment management. From making it easier for people to join a meeting to overseeing schedules, queues, and more, advanced virtual appointments makes it easier for users to control their schedules and keep in touch with others.
Microsoft Teams’ Premium features make it the perfect platform for businesses that need to manage their interactions more closely. Premium is available through a per-user/per-month payment method.
What is Microsoft Teams Standard?
The Teams Standard edition is essentially the free version of Teams. It provides you with the foundational features that make up the Teams platform. With Standard, your company can take advantage of the business world’s leading collaboration solution while saving money.
Standard’s features include:
- Video and phone calls.
- Chats (for groups and one-on-one conversations).
- Screen sharing.
- Application integration (with third-party apps and others developed by Microsoft).
- File sharing.
- Document co-editing and collaboration.
- Cloud storage.
- Team channels.
- @mentions.
- And more.
How to choose between Microsoft Teams Premium and Standard
When procuring collaboration solutions, it is important that you look at your company’s situation holistically. Every aspect of your organisation – from your team members to company procedures – needs to be considered and aligned with the collaboration tool that you believe will be the best solution for your business.
When deciding between Standard and Premium, think about the following:
- Costs – what are the costs associated with the two versions? Can you easily factor them into your company's budget (even if the solution is free)?
- Security – what cyber security measures does each version have?
- Features – what features are included in each version? Examine each feature closely and identify how it fits into your company's daily processes.
- User needs – what do you and your team members want from a collaboration platform? Do you require a solution with more customisable functions?
- Your overall business and IT strategy – you should consider your industry, customers, and the times. Between Standard and Premium, which one will best support your organisation's needs as you navigate the market?
Whether you leverage Teams Premium or Standard, it is crucial to remember that both solutions will be capable of supporting your operations.
What are the benefits of using Microsoft Teams?
No matter if you regularly take advantage of custom meetings or you like to use MS Teams as a way to catalogue your business’s internal correspondences, by using Teams, you will benefit from:
- Increased collaboration and communication for closer-knit teams and greater workplace productivity.
- Easy access to documents (via cloud access/storage) for hassle-free processes.
- Ability to share tasks and deadlines for more effective task/time management.
- Video and audio conferencing capabilities to communicate with internal and external personnel in ways that are most convenient at the time.
- Easy integration with other Microsoft apps for a reduced chance of data loss.
- Ability to create and share documents in real time for more efficient workflows.
Invest in Microsoft 365 consulting services that understand your business needs
Microsoft Teams gives you the tools your team needs to stay connected and communicate with each other whenever, wherever. Whether you decide to leverage Standard or Premium, you can stay in the know about what’s happening in your team’s world with a dynamic collaboration solution that only uses the latest (and best) technologies.
The Microsoft 365 consultants at Muscatech can help you get the most out of your Teams investment. Muscatech can help you choose between Standard or Premium (based on your needs) before implementing your chosen version with cost-efficient support, keeping your company’s collaboration standards high.
