Skype for Business Vs Microsoft Teams

Skype for Business Vs Microsoft Teams

Skype and Skype for business have been the leading platforms for personal and professional communication alike for the longest duration of time. Be it online chatting, voice calls, video calls or conference calls, it covered all and to the extent that it became a rage among the organizations in every sector. It became the sole synonym to any kind of professional communication, providing the most convenient and secure pathway to connect and collaborate.

But with time, requirements change. So, when Skype for Business was already ruling almost 90% of the market, Microsoft decided to launch something that could surpass the best of the expectations that Skype was popularly known for. It came up with its new collaboration software- Microsoft Teams.

Skype for business vs Microsoft teams

Microsoft Teams: A better alternative to Skype for Business
Microsoft had designed Teams while keeping the exponentially increasing popularity of Remote work in mind. It aimed at forming a hub for teamwork in the most effective way possible. It was designed to unleash the power of teams, be it 10 people or 1000 and so does its name suggest.

Apart from the basic features of Skype, Teams allowed large scale collaborations by enabling Intra and Inter-organizational audio and video conferences as well as allowing Live events, thus bringing the whole world at a single click. Moving on the same path, Teams combines one to one messaging, group messaging, voice calling, video conferencing and document collaboration into a single integrated application to enable exciting new ways of working together.

Benefits of Microsoft Teams
For Businesses:

• Faster decision making
• Reduced number of real-life meetings
• Enhanced information-sharing
• Easily scaled mobility and productivity
• For End-users:
• Time-efficient
• Inline translation
• Recordability and replayability of meetings
• Real-time co-authoring
• For IT teams:
• End-to-end Security
• Admin controls
• Less downtime
• Improved performance
• Easy bot integration

Why Skype for Business Migration to Microsoft Teams?

Skype for Business vs Microsoft Teams has been a matter of debate since quite a time now. For long, Skype for Business has been the most popular communication and collaboration platform satisfying various needs of the organizations for so long, but everything has a shelf life and the shelf life of Skype is nearing its end.

On the other hand, Microsoft Teams is a much advanced and modern option that can let us experience the latest technologies to achieve bottom-line benefits and productivity. It’s the future of organizational communication.

Skype of Business End Of Life

Skype for Business, though widely used across organizations, has reached its saturation point where no further updates can help it match the current business requirements. Therefore, July 31, 2021, has been slated to be the date of its retirement. After this date, Skype for Business Online will no longer be accessible or supported.

Thus, the overall communication of the organizations using it as their sole communication and collaboration channel will suddenly experience a crisis. To bypass this scarcity then, it is recommended that these organizations slowly move from it to its better counterpart- Teams, so that the change is slow enough for the employees to adapt to it.

Taking up the decision to move to teams now itself will ensure proper time for upgrade and deployment. Taking up this early migration decision can also provide you ample time to go for a pilot test with a selected group of users and understand all the pros and cons that might crop up when the real Skype for business migration to teams is executed.

All we need to remember is that technology might be quite good, but it is underproductive unless the users get acquainted with it. So, early decision to go for Migration from Skype for Business Online to Teams will play a vital role in accessing user willingness for this upgrade and will allow us to plan any training program in advance if required.

Adoptive and Adaptive Measures

The most important aspect involved in this change is the question of adoptability-be it organizational adaptivity or user adaptivity. Since this movement from Skype to Teams will change a lot about the way the organization functions, it is very important to throw a light upon the strategies that will ensure that Teams get to fit in the work culture that has been habituated of using Skype for years.

We can start with flexible options such as using Teams and Skype for Business parallelly or go for adoption strategies like community engagement programs and contextual training to highlight the team’s advantages quickly for users.

• Deployment plan to be undertaken
• Start with the internal users
• Start with coexisting teams and skype approach
• Go for the pilot test
• Assess the user’s readiness to migrate
• Assess user acceptance and put efforts to make them aware of the advantages of this platform shift
• Go for a slow, optimized change
• Coexistence plan

As an existing Skype for Business customer, a complete transition to Teams might be somewhat tricky and time taking. However, we can start early by letting the users experience Teams alongside Skype for Business and let them realize themselves how it is better than Skype. Gradually introducing it will ensure least user resent and better adaptability which will further allow them to embrace Teams as their sole communication and collaboration channel in future.

Microsoft provides Teams and Skype for Business coexistence and interoperability options to aid in this process of adaptation. By this method, a user after migrating to Teams no longer needs to use a Skype for the Business client except to join a meeting hosted on Skype for Business. All incoming chats and calls are automatically directed to the user’s Teams client, regardless of whether the sender uses Teams or Skype for Business.

Along with that, any kind of events or meetings organized by the upgraded users is automatically scheduled as Teams meetings. If the user attempts to use the Skype for Business client, initiation of chats and calls gets blocked. However, Skype for Business clients is still used to join meetings they are invited to.

These were the immediate measures that can be undertaken to initiate the journey from Skype for Business to Teams. Let your workplace be acquainted with Teams and then, Plan for a complete migration to it.