Microsoft 365 Business Premium: What Is It & Why Do You Need it?

If you currently use a Microsoft 365 Business Basic or Standard subscription, you’re already on your way to streamlining your operations and increasing your productivity. But, have you ever stopped to consider just how much more you could accomplish with Microsoft 365 Business Premium? 

Microsoft 365 Business Premium gives companies the tools they need to communicate with others, boost productivity, and secures their data in easy-to-access locations. You can work anywhere, anytime, all with the peace of mind that your data is safeguarded with enterprise-level security measures.  

The Premium tier sets itself apart with the additions of Intune, Azure Information Protection, and Microsoft Defender. Businesses get to a place where proactive defense and protection mechanisms begin driving productivity and collaboration, giving everyone a peace of mind with enterprise-level security and boosted efficiency.  

Not sure how all these added features can benefit your business? Buckle up and let’s dig in! 

In this blog, we are going to highlight the 5 main advantages of switching to Business premium, but feel free to check out Microsoft's feature breakdown on the Microsoft 365 for Business page for a more in-depth explanation of the features. 

1. Easily Manage Your Company & Personal Devices.

With Microsoft 365 Business Premium, securely and efficiently managing your company and personal devices has never been easier. The addition of Intune, a Mobile Device & Application Management (MDM & MAM) tool, helps you securely manage iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac devices through one Endpoint Management Portal.  

Here are some of the key features of Intune: 

• Create and manage device configuration & compliance policies and view detailed device reports. 

• • Want to control access to the device camera, restrict access to app stores, force a screen lock after 1 minute, or just customize the browser settings like a default home page? Just assign a policy through Intune and voila! 

• Configure new Windows devices using Autopilot. 

• •  This allows admins to pre-configure new devices with zero to no physical presence near devices.  

• Separate personal and work apps with app protection policies 

• • With Intune you can BYOD (Bring Your Own Device 😉) 

• Remotely wipe the data on employee’s devices if they’re no longer with your company (this will save your company from data theft and blackmail!). 
• Keep Windows devices up-to-date automatically with new features and security updates. 
• Push company applications to devices. 

You may find more in depth useful materials in our blogpost  Personal vs Corporate devices for Remote Work: Pros & Cons

2. Secure Identities To Prevent Unauthorized Access To Work Data.

Business Premium also equips you with the tools you need to secure your work data. Here's a quick overview of some of the features included: 

• Azure AD Conditional Access: This tool allows an admin to create “if-then” policies to strengthen your security. 

• • Conditional access policies cover a wide range of activities including requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) for accessing sensitive data, blocking access from certain applications based on the location of the employee, or requiring the use of encrypted connections. 

• Single Sign On (SSO): SSO is a secure authentication method that allows users to sign in using one set of credentials to multiple other software systems. Using SSO means a user doesn't have to sign into every application they use – no need to remember if you used Password1234 or Password1234! For your log in! 
• Self-Service Password Reset: This feature gives your team the ability to change or reset their password. Now, when Sam from Sales forgets his password for the fourth time, he can simply reset it himself! 
• Two-Factor Authentication With Windows Hello: This feature enables users to sign into their company owned device using a PIN, facial recognition, or a fingerprint – creating a faster, simpler sign in experience.  

Along with the impressive security benefits, these features also remove a lot of time and overhead from IT and other departments, allowing everyone more time to complete the work they need to. 

3. Increase Your Productivity & Collaboration Efficiency.

Effective team collaboration is the key to the success of a business and is especially important for remote businesses.  

When Henry from HR can’t just walk into the IT person’s office and hand them their malfunctioning laptop or Sam from Sales can’t drop by Mariana from Marketing’s desk for a face-to-face discussion of the latest round of edits on an article, modern business collaboration tools become essential for your day-to-day. 

 Luckily for you, Microsoft 365 Business Premium equips your company with the collaboration and productivity tools that make it possible to work on projects collaboratively, brainstorm ideas, track project progress, or meet remotely. With the addition of both web and desktop applications as well as the applications and services you already know and love – Teams, Exchange Online, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint – your business can reach new productivity heights.  

With the addition of the full-featured desktop apps, your team has the ability to tackle so much more: 

With Business Premium, your team will spend less time switching between different apps, searching for lost files, or sending emails back-and-forth, and more time being productive.  

4. Defend Against Cyber Threats with Enterprise-Grade Security.

Let’s say it’s Monday and Mariana from Marketing is just getting into work. She sits down and opens her Outlook app and begins catching up on emails. One of them is from her boss, Bill. It looks like he sent her an email with an attachment titled ‘quick recap’. Remembering their conversation at the end of the day on Friday, Mariana is glad that Bill put together some notes.  

Mariana opens the file, and (uh-oh!) she just got phished. Now her hard drive is under ransomware, and she lost access to not only her data, but jeopardized the entire business.  

With Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Enterprise-grade security is automatically enabled, so you can relax with a peace of mind that you and your business is protected from harmful cyber-attacks. You can rest easy knowing that Microsoft Business Premium provides layered security to protect your users, devices, applications, and data from cyber threats. 

Business Premium includes Microsoft Defender for Office365, allowing you to deploy all sorts of email protection policies 

In addition, Business Premium provides the bonus of Defender for Business (the set of defense tools that previously only big businesses could afford!). 

5. Safeguard Your Sensitive Data.

Worried about sensitive business data like financials or customer records making it out of the building? We’ve addressed how Business Premium protects your business from bad actors on the outside, but have you considered insider risk? If you’ve never thought about it, maybe you should! What happens when an employee copies the files to a USB drive and loses it somewhere, or the employee that plans to leave the business for a competitor and takes off with all the customer records and financials?  

With the addition of Information Protection in Business Premium, you don’t need to stress! With Information protection and Data Loss Prevention in Microsoft 365 Business Premium, you can: 

• Limit access to files or email, so only employees or invited guests can access them  
• Disable access to classified documents when an employee leaves the company 

Information Protection helps you classify and label your sensitive data based on its content and context. You can use Information Protection to apply encryption, access restrictions, visual markings, retention policies, etc., to your data based on its sensitivity level. You can also track and revoke access to your protected data if needed. 

For example, your customer service team might handle credit card information. Your customers expect their sensitive data to be treated with privacy. What if the customer service agent accidentally forwards credit card information to someone who is not authorized to view it? You have violated your clients’ privacy and trust as well as the regulations that govern your industry. 

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) helps you prevent accidental or intentional leakage of your sensitive data outside your organization. You can use Data Loss Prevention to define policies that identify sensitive data in motion (such as email or chat), at rest (such as SharePoint or OneDrive), or in use (such as desktop apps). You can also configure actions that block or warn users when they try to share sensitive data with unauthorized recipients. 

Microsoft 365 Business Premium also includes Compliance Manager, which can help you set up your data loss prevention, data lifecycle management, and insider risk management, and more. Compliance Manager can save you time by highlighting recommendations, compliance scores, and ways to improve your score. 

With these information protection features, Business Premium lets you rest easy knowing you 

• Have a reduced risk of data loss
• Attain improved customer trust  

In Short

Microsoft 365 Business Premium offers a winning combination of security and productivity for small and medium-sized businesses. With features like streamlined sign-in, robust cybersecurity, and remote device management, this comprehensive technology package is the perfect solution for companies looking to thrive in today's modern work environment & smaller companies finally have access to an enterprise-grace features, capabilities, look and feel!  

Want to learn more about Microsoft 365 Business Premium and what you can achieve with it? Check out our upcoming webinars that take a deeper look at the features offered with Business Premium.