In today’s business climate, workflows should start transitioning to digital. It’s because change is demanding immediacy — in plans, processes, actions, and results. With complex business information, tight deadlines, and the pursuit to remain competitive, businesses need reliable telecommunication technology. Various electronic conferencing services are now available for team meetings, structured meetings, events, and even document collaboration or document conferencing.

Collaboration and communication in many workplaces post-pandemic have been made possible by productivity tools and software that connect individuals who are otherwise physically apart. One such tool is Microsoft Teams, which is a cloud-based tool that empowers its users to collaborate on a department- and project-basis. Its steady increase in active users since the pandemic speaks of the tool’s efficacy in streamlining all workflows of an organization, especially collaboration and communication.

The emergence of virtual meetings as a prevailing business norm brings forth an indispensable value. In 2022, the value of the global video conferencing market reaches up to $7.02 billion, which serves as compelling evidence of their lasting impact. While they may not entirely resolve the challenges of meeting culture, they do offer numerous advantages surpassing traditional in-office gatherings.

With the introduction of new technology, companies are meticulously handpicking the best applications that could offer the most convenience as they fully embrace digitalization. When it comes to meetings, a leader naturally is Microsoft’s Office suite.

By the start of 2022, Microsoft Teams officially declared that it has topped 270 million active users in its collaboration platform. With such meteoric growth, MS Teams is now the most popular business collaboration and communication platform, outperforming Slack and Zoom. Microsoft’s business messaging tool prides itself on its smart and team collaboration capabilities, such as integrations with other Office 365 applications like Outlook and SharePoint.

Meeting preparation is a tedious task. Administrators and secretaries alike have to use multiple applications to ensure successful structured meetings. Currently, several meeting platforms aid in meeting preparation, such as Microsoft Teams, which enables you to easily schedule meetings. However, meeting preparation also demands long hours of document consolidation and participants’ coordination.

Work meetings can be indeed very taxing to prepare and run. Despite this, they provide opportunities to collaborate, generate new and creative insights, and even add value to the entire company. With strong leadership and careful planning, ensuring every meeting is purposeful or productive is simple. To make your life easier, let’s take a deep dive into some essential meeting facts.

With its features that allow bringing together ideas and individuals, Teams has been regarded as a staple for organizations in the Microsoft ecosystem. As more businesses are relying on the functionalities of such an application, how secure is Teams for your teams? Organizing structured meetings in Teams may be vulnerable to some security hiccups, such as unwanted meeting access and information breakout with unorganized access controls.

Formal meetings in Teams become unproductive in the absence of ample preparation. Companies sometimes neglect the idea of meeting preparation and proceed with informal discussions instead, as it’s easier to just click the call button, compared to elaborate coordination and planning. As a result, follow-up meetings increase, which burns out the meeting participants.

Action items are one of the most crucial pieces of information that teams can generate from a meeting. It elevates meeting productivity in MS Teams as it translates the discussion items into achievable tasks. However, the simple to-do lists may be insufficient to track everything, from assignment to completion. Meeting organizers may need a meeting solution that can record and trace action items from meetings.