June 21st, 2021 | 5 minute read
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The most important highlights of a study conducted on the potential return on investment for Microsoft Teams.
You might be on the fence about implementing Microsoft Teams as a part of Microsoft 365 for your company. Or you might be trying to convince your boss to implement Microsoft Teams, because of the benefits in productivity and collaboration. But let’s be honest – the one thing a company owner or executive would be most interested in is what the potential return on investment is. What is the economic impact on a company when adopting Teams as a part of Microsoft 365? The answer will blow you away.
Teams bring many of the collaboration and communication solutions within Microsoft 365 into one focused platform, that functions as a workspace. Teams is all about working smarter together on one platform – securely.
Microsoft requested Forrester Consulting to conduct a study, examine, and evaluate the potential financial impact of Teams as a part of Microsoft 365 on their organizations. Four Teams customers were interviewed, and another 260 were surveyed. Findings from other studies relating to this solution were also incorporated. The results were applied to a composite organization that made Teams available to 5,000 users. Forrester focused on the quantified benefits of four key values of Teams, being communication, collaboration, integration, and management.
We have listed the study’s most important findings below per category:
Communication
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Meetings are shorter and less: Teams meetings are more reliable and high quality in audio and video, resulting in less time spent addressing call quality issues and other set-up related issues. Employees get more out of their meetings and require less of them. The time savings over 3 years is worth $6.9 million.
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Reduced calls: Companies reported other reduced communication costs by using Teams. Think about long-distance calls, mobile calls, and on-premises telephony costs that are reduced because of Teams.
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Less meeting trips: Why travel when you can meet online? Overnight trips are reduced when using Teams, so imagine the money saved on booking airfare, hotel, and transportation. The total savings over 3 years is more than $233,000.
Collaboration
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Save time working smarter: Features like co-authoring and version control, conversations and more available in one place enables employees to work more effectively and efficiently. The total savings over 3 years is more than $14 million.
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Make decisions faster: The shared workspace concept means having information and resources readily available and being able to confer with peers more efficiently. This improves the time-to-decision for executives and decision makers by 17.7%. The total savings over three years is more than $450.000.
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Less onboarding costs: Teams reduces the time to train and onboard new hires. Worker satisfaction, integration and empowerment is improved, and attrition rates are reduced.
Integration
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No switching between applications: Employees save time by having features and information sources available within Teams, rather than switching between apps. Think about the mechanics of switching and cognitive re-engagement. The times savings over 3 years is worth almost $4.8 million.
In the interviews, one business reported seeing users integrate their own PowerApps into teams. Another praised the integration of Microsoft Apps Store with Teams, allowing all sorts of features to be added.
Management
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Less downtime: Having all resources you need in one cloud-based workspace reduces user downtime.
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Improved Security: 86% of organizations that are using Teams as part of Microsoft 365 indicate that privacy controls are better than their previous solutions, and 84% said tye improves remote working security.
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Reduced compliance and eDiscovery: Because teams are able to communicate and collaborate in a centralized way, companies reduce their compliance and eDiscovery efforts.
Return on Investment
When purchasing Microsoft 365, a percentage of the costs related to this purchase are attributed to the Teams solution. Forrester estimates that with the purchase of a Microsoft 365 E5 license, 25% of the cost is attributed to Teams. Forrester has also taken the cost of the efforts to implement and support the Teams solution, as well as the cost of professional services for initial deployment.
Forrester’s research (consisting of interviews with four existing customers, a survey of 260 other companies, integrated data points from more than 50 interviews from other TEI studies, and subsequent financial analysis) found present value benefits of $30.3 million over three years versus present value costs of $3.2 million, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $27.1 million and an ROI of 832% (The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Teams, Forrester, 2019).