the oﬃce 365 - sharepoint€¦ · predicted and a proliferation of new collaboration tools have...

2018

The Office 365 app usage report

2018Executive summary

harmon.ieharmon.ie

2018 // www.harmon.ie

02 // Usage report 2018

The survey gathered responses from

over 1,000 people who work at

organizations using Office 365

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Contents


Usage report 2018 \\ 03

04Executive summary

06Office 365 beyind the hype

10The cornerstone of today’s collaboration is still email

12Keeping people at the center of great collaboration

Executive summ

ary 2018



‘Digital transformation’ and an IT migration to the cloud promises companies a new way of not only storing their information but also allowing their employees to communicate and collaborate with one another across the organization. This move promises a boost in productivity and efficiency strong enough to shift the bottom line in the right direction.

One of the central players in this surge towards the cloud has been (and continues to be) Microsoft’s Office 365. As the dominant platform in the world of enterprise productivity solutions, the premise of this report is to understand real Office 365 usage: who is using what and where organizations are on the adoption curve. The following report is based on results of a survey carried out in early 2018.

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The survey gathered responses from over 1,000 people who work at organizations using Office 365. The purpose was to find out how many of the apps and tools availa-ble in Office 365 are being used, company plans for future use, and what respondents think about each app. The information gleaned is to help those in the enterprise space to better understand the adoption, use, and value of Office 365.

Executive summary

There is a sense that waves of companies are moving to Office 365, however, anecdotal evidence suggests that people are not necessarily using many of the tools once they get there. Understanding real Office 365 usage allows organizations to make better decisions about what to roll out, how to train people, and how fast they should move based on where the market really is. No company wants to be left behind. Only by understanding who’s using what can companies make intelligent decisions about what they should be providing to their staff.

Our methods of research

harmon.ie commissioned an independent third-party to find out what Office 365 usage is taking place across the enterprise today. The five-minute survey, which was carried

out at the beginning of 2018, was aimed at people who work in organizations using Office 365. The survey asked 26 questions querying the most popular apps, the level of Office 365 training provided, the type of industry, and future for the platform. The goal was to find out how many of the apps and tools available in Office 365 are being used, plans for future use, and what respondents think about each app.

Office 365, beyond the hype



Executive summ

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Key findings

55% of respondents indicated that Outlook is their most used Office 365 app.

58% of respondents saying they use Outlook ten times a day or more.

16% of users indicated Teams as one of their top three apps, compared to Outlook.

75% who indicated email as one of their top three apps.

Microsoft Teams is getting a lot of atten-tion. As it is relatively young compared to Outlook, this may play a factor in the adoption rate.

A majority (38%) expect to use Outlook the same amount in the future, with 27% expecting to use it a lot more.

In terms of industries, over 90% of construction and education respondents count Outlook as

one of their top three apps (highest), while marketing and

military report the lowest usage at around 55% (as one of their

top three apps).

Construction and education

Marketing andmilitary

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Small companies use Office 365 as their main

hub for all work.

35% 41% 47% 92.5%

12.6%21% 15%25.7%

Of all job roles, accountants, human resources, and creative roles are the least likely to use Outlook as one of their top three apps, while senior management reports the most

reliance on email and list it as one of their top three apps.

Employees at larger organizations have more choice over their apps

than smaller companies.

Large companies (1,000+ employees) use

it as their main hub.

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2018 // www.harmon.ieExecutive sum

mary 2018

The ability to collaborate effectively is at the center of digital transformation. Microsoft has been pushing digital transformation by using Office 365 as a vital and enabling platform. Trends around collaboration, from BYOD and employees choosing their own software to enterprise social media and IoT devices that aid working together, have been predicted and a proliferation of new collaboration tools have sprung up. Office 365 has been at the center of this, providing users with simple access to collaboration tools such as Skype for Business, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Yammer and Teams.

Despite the hype around new collaboration tools, and Microsoft’s attempt to satisfy its users’ growing expectations for new collaboration tools, Outlook remains the most used app among enterprise workers across all age groups, job functions and industries.

Survey results found that respondents are five-times more likely to use Outlook as their go-to app, compared to other Office apps, such as SharePoint and OneDrive for Business. Most respondents indicated using Outlook ten or more times daily.

The cornerstone of today’s collaboration is still email

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Office 365 is a foundational platform

As seen in Fig. 1.1, most organizations are already using Office 365 as their main productivity hub, and most survey respondents indicated they plan to not only continue, but deepen their investments in Office 365 in the future.

However, 34% of respondents cited that they rarely or never receive training on new Office 365 apps or updates, while 18% have

no formal policy regarding updates or new apps. While the data shows the continued popularity of Office 365, it may be seen as simply ‘part of the furniture’ of the modern workplace, where only a small proportion of the solution is used or even needed. This could be due to the relatively slow pace of change to organizations’ processes or their reliance on using the tools that they know—such as Outlook.

Executive summ

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Fig. 1.1

The steadfast nature of email

There has been a significant rise in the use of Office 365 for email only in 2017, com-pared to those organizations who have had it since 2014 and prior. This is not surprising, given that email is a proven tool that is trust-ed and widely used. It’s also possible that a lack of formal training, paired with hesitancy in learning to use new tools and features, has hindered adoption of Office 365 apps beyond email. One example of this is seen in senior management who report the highest

reliance on email (92.5% list it as one of their top three apps). If there is to be a shift in organizations who wish to better adopt Office 365 then change must come from in this key area of the business.

A higher percentage of small companies use Office 365 as their main hub for all work (25.7%)—whereas 21% of large companies (1,000+ employees) use it as their main hub.

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The survey shows that, while Office 365 is used in both SMEs and large organizations, larger companies seem to use it more. Ultimately, however, most people only use a small slice of the platform. And as new collaboration tools in Office 365 (such as Teams, OneDrive, and Yammer) and other workplace tools (Slack, Dropbox, and Box) start to root themselves in enterprise organizations, information workers are still gravitating towards office mainstays like email.

We can never truly predict what the future will hold for technology and the enterprise—we’re in a state of near constant evolution. However, there’s no denying the power of Office 365. The move to the cloud and Microsoft’s productivity platform has been in steady ascent since it was released in 2011. We see the future for the solution and for collaboration across the enterprise in general involving the continued use of email.

Instant messaging apps are unlikely to replace email, especially when it comes to formal or longer correspondence. The continued addition of communication apps may inadvertently create barriers to communication, simply by producing yet another place where employees must monitor and manage. However, improving how we work together requires a move towards digital innovation.

Keeping people at the center of great collaboration



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A foot in two worlds

This is a tricky time for knowledge workers. They are currently facing changes to how they communicate and get work done, yet these new methods and tools are not fully standardized. Therefore, workers must juggle the old way of working with the new to make sure they don’t miss important correspondence or vital information.

If organizations want a greater adoption of (and better ROI from) Office 365, they will have to focus on putting the human at the center of the digital workplace. In practical terms this means creating digital experiences that provide knowledge workers with access to all the information they need in one place. A way of bringing together all their data and correspondence to a place where they spend most of their workday, i.e. Outlook.

It’s clear from the survey data that in 2018 Outlook remains the workhorse of the enterprise. But if organizations expect employees to start using new collaboration tools, they need to do a better job of effectively integrating them into their current workflows, rather than overwhelming them with new and complicated user interfaces. Instead of leaving employees to fend for themselves, IT leaders must do more to help them extract the most value from their organization’s technology investments and find solutions that enable them to work easier and smarter. No matter how IT evolves, it always comes down to empowering people.

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To find out more about harmon.ie and our efforts to humanize digital experiences in the workplace, contact us today.

Executive summ

ary 20182018 // www.harmon.ie


+1 800-624-6946 – USA

+44 1494 358340 – UK

www.harmon.ie

the oﬃce 365 - sharepoint€¦ · predicted and a proliferation of new collaboration tools have...

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