Small and medium companies (SMBs) within the United States proceed to be the spine of the financial system, accounting for 99 % of all companies and using greater than 60 million staff—almost half of the US workforce.1 From the rise of distant work to the emergence of AI, SMBs are poised to learn significantly from a brand new era of expertise to assist develop and scale companies.
There are 11 million SMBs that now depend on Microsoft 365 options to assist them obtain greater than ever. Read on to study extra about new investments Microsoft is making to assist SMBs obtain greater than ever earlier than.
Microsoft 365
For a restricted time, get 15% off Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium by May 31. Terms and situations apply.
We are enthusiastic about our latest AI announcement that can remodel the best way you’re employed and streamline your small business operations. Below, we’ll focus on what these new AI capabilities imply to companies like yours. We have additionally partnered with GoDaddy, PayPal, and Stripe to convey you a first-of-its-kind Teams Payments app that helps you shut new enterprise and receives a commission instantly in Microsoft Teams conferences; we’ll spotlight a undertaking group app that helps your staff higher collaborate and create collectively; and share new security measures that may shield your workforce’s units.
We are partnering with the Small Business Association to sponsor National Small Business Week (NSBW) within the United States, and in celebration, we’re providing promotional pricing for the month of May 2023 whenever you purchase a full 12 months of Microsoft 365 Business Premium or Microsoft 365 Business Standard. As somebody who has a robust ardour for the success of small companies, I’m additionally thrilled to personally current on the NSBW Virtual Summit and present you ways your small business can profit from AI to realize your small business targets.
Get able to put the facility of AI to work for your small business
SMBs are quickly changing into the brand new adopters of AI. Businesses are utilizing AI-powered instruments for gross sales and advertising automation and enterprise operations automation. In reality, in a latest survey of 550 companies with fewer than 200 staff, 72 % stated they’re accustomed to AI instruments, with 48 % utilizing them every day.2
In March, we introduced Microsoft 365 Copilot, which can remodel the best way you’re employed and free you to deal with the issues most essential to your small business.
Copilot saves you time by automating routine duties, streamlining enterprise workflows, and offering beneficial insights that will help you make the fitting selections. It brings collectively your individual information—your inner paperwork, displays, chat, and electronic mail—and makes use of it that will help you draft emails, summarize conferences, and extra. Let’s stroll by a state of affairs that will help you visualize a few of the methods Copilot may also help small and medium companies.
Drafting buyer responses: A clothes retailer proprietor asks Copilot to summarize the morning’s emails, flag messages that embrace buyer suggestions and provider issues, and draft custom-made responses to every inquiry.
Analyzing information: The retailer proprietor makes use of Excel to interrupt down gross sales by sort and channel to find out profitability, undertaking the impression of accelerating the shop’s on-line stock, then reformat information into visible charts to mannequin how stock shifts might impression the enterprise’s gross margin.
Wanting to write down a enterprise planning overview, the proprietor makes use of Microsoft Word to summarize buyer suggestions—pulling information from electronic mail and Teams chats—in addition to combine the newly-analyzed information and decide the advantages of accelerating on-line stock.
Creating a proposal: Next, the proprietor asks PowerPoint to draft a two-page undertaking proposal to share with enterprise stakeholders, primarily based on buyer suggestions and the sooner evaluation—then additional makes use of Copilot to summarize the knowledge in only one slide.
Summarizing conferences: The retailer proprietor meets with the retail retailer workforce to debate enterprise methods and asks Teams to summarize key dialogue factors and opinions and counsel motion objects—all in real-time throughout a gathering.
These are just some examples of how Copilot can profit your small business. To study extra about AI and Copilot, learn the Microsoft 365 Copilot weblog or deep dive into the expertise and science with Worklab: AI-a entire new method of working.
Use the brand new Teams Payments app that will help you shut enterprise and receives a commission
Getting paid for appointments, lessons, and webinars—primarily any assembly you host in Teams—has simply turn into simpler. We are launching the Teams Payments app, which permits SMBs to simply handle and accumulate funds from inside Teams conferences in your desktop or cell gadget throughout a gathering.
We have partnered with main gamers within the funds area to mix the core collaboration capabilities in Teams with highly effective commerce options on this first-of-its-kind app. With a mutual deal with serving to SMBs prosper, we’re excited to accomplice with GoDaddy, PayPal, and Stripe to make it even simpler for patrons to work together with you and provide help to receives a commission sooner.
The Teams Payments app is at the moment obtainable in public preview within the Teams Store for Teams Essentials and Microsoft 365 enterprise subscribers at no cost for companies registered within the United States and Canada. PayPal and Stripe are each obtainable at the moment inside the app; GoDaddy is coming quickly. Read extra about this announcement in our Teams Payments weblog.
Think, plan, and create collectively like by no means earlier than with Microsoft Loop
We just lately launched the Loop app, a brand new method to your staff to arrange all of their undertaking wants in a single central place—together with ideas, hyperlinks, and paperwork. Loop even helps you get began by suggesting related information to incorporate as you begin a brand new workspace. Its versatile interface helps you set up your workspace the best way that works greatest for you.
With Loop, your work isn’t confined to a single area. You can flip components of your workspace into Loop parts, that are transportable items of content material that keep in sync throughout all of the locations they’re shared—be it in Teams, Outlook, Microsoft Whiteboard, or Word for the online—permitting your groups to co-create and work collectively seamlessly as you create lists, tables, notes, and extra.
With the discharge of Copilot, you’ll quickly be capable of use its capabilities in Loop to higher ideate collectively. As you and your teammates work, you may return to earlier prompts, add language to refine the output, and edit the generated responses to get higher, extra personalised outcomes.
The Loop app is offered at the moment in public preview. Enable Loop to your workforce then go to Microsoft Loop to get began.
Safeguard your small business with safety options constructed for SMBs
Protecting your small business towards the ever-evolving menace of cybercrime is important, and we stay dedicated to delivering safety options that assist small and medium companies keep secure from cyberattacks. We’re happy to convey new safety capabilities to Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft Defender for Business to assist make safety extra accessible.
Defender for Business now simplifies safety for cell units, defending you from threats equivalent to malware and ransomware on iOS and Android—with out the necessity for add-ons or gadget administration—serving to your staff keep safe on the go.
Monthly safety stories have been added to assist simplify your small business’s safety standing throughout id, units, data, and apps and supply suggestions for enchancment, shut gaps, and instill confidence in stakeholders.
To study extra about these updates, learn the newest weblog and go to the SMB Security net web page.
Microsoft 365 promotional provide
In celebration of National Small Business Week, Microsoft is providing companies within the United States a 15 % low cost off the primary full 12 months of Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Terms and situations apply.*
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard: Includes your favourite apps, equivalent to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams, to assist convey your concepts to life.
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium: Includes the capabilities in Microsoft 365 Business Standard, plus superior safety and administration capabilities.
Get began with this limited-time provide.
Looking forward
At Microsoft, we’re devoted to delivering highly effective instruments that provide help to develop your small enterprise. Explore our newest Microsoft 365 merchandise that will help you get AI prepared, in addition to these helpful sources for SMBs:
- Small enterprise assist and studying: Learn extra about easy methods to arrange and use your Microsoft 365 subscription, discover ideas and templates that will help you accomplish your small business duties, and get probably the most out of hybrid work.
- Small enterprise sources: Get free sources, tech coaching, and steering to maintain your small business thriving and rising.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot: AI software combines the facility of language fashions along with your information to show your phrases into highly effective data.
1Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business, US Small Business Administration, March 2023.
2Microsoft small and medium enterprise (SMB) voice and attitudes to expertise research, Microsoft, 2022.
* This promotional provide is offered to new Microsoft 365 business prospects between May 1, 2023, and May 31, 2023, within the United States. Customers can buy Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Business Premium with a 15 % low cost when bought from our direct web site. An annual dedication is required, and promotional pricing applies to the first 12 months solely. Promotional pricing will probably be mirrored at checkout. This subscription routinely renews and is topic to recurring month-to-month billing with a cost technique required. This promotion isn’t obtainable on trial subscriptions. Customers can cancel at any time to cease future prices. This provide is probably not mixed with any different provide. Microsoft reserves the fitting to cancel, change, or droop this provide at any time with out discover.