Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the United States continue to be the backbone of the economy, accounting for 99% of all businesses and employing more than 60 million workers (almost half of the U.S. workforce).1 From the rise of remote work to the rise of AI, SMBs are poised to greatly benefit from a new generation of technologies that will help them grow and scale their businesses.
Today, 11 million SMBs rely on Microsoft 365 solutions to achieve more than ever before. Read below to learn more about the new investments Microsoft is making to help SMBs achieve more than ever before.
Microsoft 365
For a limited time, save 15% on Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium until May 31st. Terms of use apply.
We are excited about recent AI announcements that are transforming the way we work and streamlining business operations. Below, we discuss what these new AI capabilities mean for companies like yours. We’ve also partnered with GoDaddy, PayPal, and Stripe to bring you the first-of-its-kind Teams Payments app that helps you close new businesses and get paid directly for your Microsoft Teams meetings. Discover project organization apps that help employees work more collaboratively. Share new security features that can protect your team’s devices.
Microsoft partners with the Small Business Association to sponsor the US National Small Business Week (NSBW). To celebrate, we are offering promotional pricing for May 2023 when you purchase Microsoft 365 Business Premium or Microsoft for a year. 365 business standard. With a strong passion for small business success, I was excited to make a personal presentation at the NSBW Virtual Summit to showcase how businesses can benefit from AI to achieve their business goals. I am happy.
Get ready to harness the power of AI in your business
SMBs are fast becoming the new adopters of AI. Businesses are using AI-powered tools to automate sales and marketing, and to automate business operations. In fact, in a recent survey of 550 companies with fewer than 200 employees, 72% said they were familiar with AI tools, and 48% use them daily.2
In March, we announced Microsoft 365 Copilot. It will transform the way you work and help you focus on what matters most to your business.
Copilot saves time by automating mundane tasks, streamlining business workflows, and providing valuable insights to help you make the right decisions. Bring together your own data such as internal documents, presentations, chats, and emails for use in email drafts, meeting summaries, and more. Let’s take a look at a scenario that helps visualize some of the ways Copilot can help small businesses.
Customer correspondence drafting: A clothing store owner asked Copilot to summarize their morning emails, flag messages containing customer feedback or supplier concerns, and draft a customized response to each inquiry. increase.
Data analysis: Store owners use Excel to analyze sales by type and channel, determine profitability, predict the impact of increasing store online inventory, and reformat data into visual charts. to model how changes in inventory affect the gross margin of the business.
An owner who wants to outline a business plan can use Microsoft Word to pull data from emails and Teams chats to summarize customer feedback, consolidate newly analyzed data, and publish it online. Determine the benefits of having more inventory.
Create a proposal: The owner then asks PowerPoint to draft a two-page project proposal to share with business stakeholders, based on customer feedback and previous analysis, and then uses Copilot to convert it to a single slide. Summarize the information.
meeting summary: The store owner meets with the retail team to discuss business strategy, summarize key discussion points and opinions, and ask the team to suggest action items. All of this happens in real time during the meeting.
These are just a few examples of how Copilot can help your business. To learn more about AI and Copilot, read the Microsoft 365 Copilot blog, or dive deep into technology and science at Worklab: AI – A Whole New Way of Working.
Close deals and get paid with the new Teams Payments app
Getting paid for bookings, classes, and webinars (basically any meeting you host in Teams) just got easier. Release the Teams Payments app. This allows SMBs to easily manage and collect payments during meetings from within Teams meetings on desktop or mobile devices.
We’ve partnered with leading players in the payments space to combine the core collaboration capabilities of Teams with powerful commerce capabilities in this kind of app. With our mutual focus on helping SMBs thrive, we are excited to partner with GoDaddy, PayPal, and Stripe to help our customers interact more easily and get paid faster. increase.
The Teams Payments app is now in public preview on the Teams Store for Teams Essentials and Microsoft 365 Business subscribers, and is free for businesses registered in the US and Canada. Both PayPal and Stripe are currently available within the app. GoDaddy is coming soon. For more information on this announcement, please visit the Teams Payments blog.
Think, plan and create together like never before with Microsoft Loop
We recently launched the Loop app, a new way for employees to organize all their project needs, including thoughts, links, and documents, all in one place. Loop also helps you get started by suggesting relevant files to include when starting a new workspace. Its flexible interface helps you organize your workspace in a way that works best for you.
With Loop, your work isn’t confined to a single space. You can convert part of your workspace into a loop component. Loop components are portable content that stays in sync everywhere it’s shared, including Teams, Outlook, Microsoft Whiteboard, and Word for the web. -Collaborate seamlessly by creating lists, tables, notes, and more.
With the release of Copilot, you’ll soon be able to use its capabilities in Loop to come up with better ideas together. As you and your teammates work, you can return to previous prompts, add languages to refine the output, and edit generated responses for better, more personalized results. can.
The Loop app is available in public preview today. Enable Loop for Teams, then visit Microsoft Loop to get started.
Protect your business with a security solution built for SMBs
Protecting your business from the ever-evolving cybercriminal threat is critical. We remain committed to providing security solutions that help small businesses stay safe from cyberattacks. We’re excited to introduce new security features to Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft Defender for Business to make security more accessible.
Defender for Business simplifies mobile device security, protecting against threats like malware and ransomware on iOS and Android without the need for add-ons or device management, helping employees stay safe on the go. increase.
Added monthly security reports to simplify the security status of your business across identities, devices, information, and apps, providing recommendations for improvement, closing gaps, and giving stakeholders confidence .
For more information on these updates, read our latest blog and visit our SMB Security webpage.
Microsoft 365 promotional offers
In honor of National Small Business Week, Microsoft is offering US businesses a 15% discount on the first year of Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Terms apply. *
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard: Includes your favorite apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams to help bring your ideas to life.
- Microsoft 365 business premium: Includes the features of Microsoft 365 Business Standard plus advanced security and management features.
Get started with this limited time offer.
looking to the future
At Microsoft, we’re dedicated to providing powerful tools to help your small business grow. Check out the latest Microsoft 365 products to help you get ready for AI, and these resources to help your SMB:
- Help and learning for small businesses: Learn more about how to set up and use your Microsoft 365 subscription, find tips and templates to help you accomplish your business tasks, and get the most out of hybrid work.
- Small Business Resources: Get free resources, technical training, and guidance to keep your business thriving and growing.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot: AI tools combine the power of language models with data to turn words into powerful information.
1Small Business Frequently Asked Questions, U.S. Small Business Administration, March 2023.
2Microsoft Small and Medium Business (SMB) Voices and Attitudes to Technology Research, Microsoft, 2022.
*This promotional offer is available to Microsoft 365 commercial customers May 1, 2023 through May 31, 2023 in the United States. Get a 15% discount when you purchase Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Business Premium through our direct website. Annual contract required, promotional pricing applies to first year only. Promotional prices are reflected at checkout. This subscription automatically renews and is subject to recurring monthly billing that requires a payment method. This promotion is not available for trial subscriptions. Customers can cancel at any time to stop future charges. This offer cannot be combined with any other offers. Microsoft reserves the right to cancel, modify, or suspend this offer at any time without notice.
