Office 365 offers loads of ways to help your business to communicate better. But which ones should your company be using? Spoiler alert: it’s all of them, and that’s good…

Office 365 provides a suite of tools designed to people to discover, share and collaborate on content from anywhere, and on any device.

While there are many services, each serves a different function. You might be tempted to simply replace your current setup with the most obvious analogues: Exchange Online replacing email, Skype replacing landline, OneDrive replacing your shared drives, and so on.

But the fact is these services are designed to work together, based on the urgency and intended audience of any given task. By using most of them in concert, users get the advantage of an integrated and consistent experience which can handle a majority of tasks, delivering immediate value.

Continue reading this post…

Microsoft has announced general availability of the brand new PowerApps platform this week. It’s a big deal; here’s what you need to know.

As a Microsoft partner, we’ve been experimenting with PowerApps for some time, and are really excited by the possibilities on offer. It’s a revolution in how business apps are made, and will fundamentally alter the way businesses interact with their data. Read on to find out what PowerApps are, and why the release of this platform is so important.

What are PowerApps?

Continue reading this post…

We held a fantastic party this month to celebrate 20 years in business.

The opulent surroundings of the George Hotel played host to customers, partners and staff past and present as we celebrated CompanyNet’s 20th anniversary.

CEO Andy Hamilton and co-founder and former CEO Neil Francis spoke about the journey that the company has taken, and our remarkable resilience in a highly-competitive and ever-changing industry.

Continue reading this post…

The technology event of the year, Microsoft Ignite 2016, was held last week in Atlanta. It brought together the best and brightest minds to talk cloud infrastructure and management, productivity, big data and much more.

Among many exciting announcements, Reuben Krippner – Microsoft’s Director of Product Management, OneDrive – showcased major updates to OneDrive for Business on Office 365, including the eagerly-anticipated improved sync functionality. Let us take you through a rundown of the key new features and enhancements.

Continue reading this post…

When you have a problem as a customer, how painless do you feel the process is to resolve it? And does your organisation do any better?

In Microsoft’s 2016 “State of Global Customer Service” report, nearly half of the respondents said they felt that they, as customers, had to put in more work to resolve their issue than the business at fault. Given the tools and technologies now available to businesses of every size, that’s a startlingly high figure.

What problems do customers face?

The report identifies common complaints such as customer support agents not being equipped with the information to hand about the customer’s problem, having to repeat information to several different people, and the frustration of the problem remaining unsolved.

Continue reading this post…

At this year’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company’s focus was firmly on digital transformation. But what does that actually mean?

In a business context, transformation is when your business makes fundamental changes to its working practices, processes and infrastructure, in order to create better outcomes. Those outcomes could be smoother operations, better-engaged customers, more-empowered employees or even new products and services. Digital transformation is simply using the latest technology to get there.

Continue reading this post…

Travel back with us through two decades in business as a leading Microsoft Gold Partner in the UK, and discover twenty milestones that made CompanyNet the success it is today.

Continue reading this post…