Microsoft is on a roll lately, delivering new and updated solutions such as an improved Teams experience and the company’s AI assistant, Copilot.
As a result, many organizations have now standardized on Microsoft 365, with Teams as their collaboration and productivity solution, and more companies are experimenting with Copilot.
When you run so much of your business using Microsoft solutions, however, it’s worth having an IT partner who’s an expert in the brand and can provide technical support as needed. Here’s what small and medium-sized businesses need to know about CDW’s Technology Support (CTS) services for Microsoft solutions.
RELATED: Get started with CTS Microsoft today.
Microsoft Bets on AI and Bolsters Teams
Microsoft is going all in on artificial intelligence. As noted by Reuters, the company’s capital spending reached $55.7 billion for all of 2024, with most of this money invested in cloud computing and AI.
According to the Microsoft Teams blog, meanwhile, the company continues to bolster its collaboration offering. July’s updates includes pop-up message suggestions when searching chat, cross-cloud guest access on the web, and improved speaker attributions and transcripts.
Microsoft is popular with small businesses because its broad and deep solutions portfolio includes most of the technologies that businesses need day to day: Its popular Windows 11 operating system is standard on most laptops and PCs; a Microsoft 365 subscription provides access to its Teams collaboration solution and its full productivity suite, including Word and Excel; and its Azure cloud offering offers scalable storage and access to advanced services, including AI.
But precisely because Microsoft is so big, it can often be helpful to a small company to work with a trusted provider for technical support and other services. CDW Technology Support for Microsoft covers troubleshooting for:
- Azure
- Office 365
- Microsoft Exchange
- Intune
- SharePoint
- Teams
- SQL Server
- Microsoft Dynamics
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CTS Microsoft: Get Help How and When You Need It
While speed is a key component of CTS Microsoft support, that’s not all SMBs get with CDW.
Staff can connect with support personnel in whatever way works best for them: Support is available 24/7 via email, through a dedicated web portal, or by phone. A customer manager is assigned to every business, providing both a direct line of contact and enabling CDW to conduct periodic reviews to identify any recurring or systemic issues.
The result is support for a small business’s needs as they emerge. If an organization experiences problems with Azure, cloud experts are assigned to solve the issue. If database problems emerge, SQL professionals are on the case. And if the situation requires direct support from Microsoft, we escalate the issue on the company’s behalf.
EXPLORE: The Microsoft and CDW solutions that can improve your business.
Most small-business CTS contracts cover 40 hours of work per calendar year, but custom contracts are also available. We’ll evaluate the typical number of Microsoft incidents an SMB reports and assess that against our historical repair timelines. This will allow us to create custom quotes that may be more cost-effective than a pay-as-you-go model. Billing can be done either via CDW or through Microsoft.
It's worth noting that if organizations have unused hours toward the end of their contract, they can apply those to support a planned activity, such as migrating to a cloud platform or updating Office 365.
For SMBs, Microsoft solutions offer a reliable balance of performance and price. When support needs arise, however, it’s worth having technical experts in your corner who can act quickly to address specific concerns.
This article is part of BizTech's AgilITy blog series.
