How to Boost Efficiency with Microsoft Copilot

Published 05/01/24 under:

2023 was the year where just about every business vowed to harness the benefits of AI.

However, that can be easier said than done, particularly in a world where every startup is claiming to be able to transform your business processes with yet another ChatGPT-powered app.

For a lot of businesses, Microsoft Copilot has emerged as a trusted option to capture the benefits of AI with minimal risk. At Kerv, we’re huge fans of Copilot’s features, and in this post we’ll talk you through some of the ways you could harness AI-powered efficiency improvements by integrating Copilot into your Microsoft 365 environment.

What are the benefits of Microsoft Copilot?

Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft’s industry-leading AI-powered assistant. Rather than harnessing AI to complete tasks alone, Copilot is designed to support your team, enhancing their abilities and empowering them to get more done. By helping to automate manual tasks, Copilot takes time-consuming busy work off your team’s to-do list and tips the scales in favour of value-adding time.

Productivity and efficiency are hot topics in business for good reason – freeing up stretched teams from time-consuming manual work can have a massive effect on your business’s bottom line, allowing them to get more done and serve clients, customers or stakeholders more effectively.

How does Microsoft Copilot enhance efficiency?

Microsoft Copilot’s key selling point is its ability to improve your team’s productivity. It does this by integrating almost everywhere within Microsoft 365, offering helpful tools and automation options to speed up the tasks that users tend to find most time-consuming. Here’s a quick video from Microsoft showcasing how it can all come together to boost efficiency…

Streamlining Office Processes

Copilot integrates seamlessly with the core Microsoft 365 apps, enables your team to access advanced features in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint using natural language prompts. No more navigating through complex menus or learning intricate formulae. Your team can effortlessly ask Copilot to create data projections, animate slides, or even generate first drafts of content.

Speeding up Communication

Communication is the lifeblood of any organisation, but it shouldn’t consume more time than creation. Copilot integrates seamlessly with Teams and Outlook, reducing the time your teams spend managing communication. It automatically summarises lengthy email threads, generates meeting notes, and even crafts email replies in an individual’s own writing style—a feature aptly named “sounds like me.”

Consolidating Business Data

One of Copilot’s most exciting features is its ability to access data from across your organisation. Via Microsoft 365 Chat, Copilot can quickly pull and summarise information on any topic, for example a customer conversation or an ongoing project, from emails, documents, calendar notes, and more. No more digging through long email threads or sifting through old presentations—Copilot consolidates your business data for quick and easy access.

Streamlining sales processes

For business development teams, Copilot’s features are also integrated into Dynamics 365. It summarises activity on key accounts, allowing teams to prepare for meetings quickly and easily, and provides quick access to vital data on prospects or accounts, helping your sales team to effortlessly stay on top of their pipeline.

Copilot for Developers

Copilot brings context-aware AI to the coding realm. From generating code suggestions to reviewing entire functions, developers reported increased productivity and satisfaction when using GitHub Copilot. Copilot also seamlessly integrates into Microsoft Power Platform, allowing users to build apps using natural language prompts.

Not just productivity – Copilot builds engagement

Beyond simply reducing workloads, Copilot also offers the potential to drive an impact on your team’s experience and wellbeing at work.

End users can find technology frustrating for a huge range of reasons, whether they’re struggling to navigate complex formulae in Excel, or burned out by trawling through yet another mile-long email thread to find the nugget of information they need.

Copilot aims to streamline the process of navigating the huge amount of data we’re all faced with every day, offering helpful shortcuts and AI-powered intelligence to help your team cut through the noise and focus on what matters most to them. In doing so, the goal is to give teams the ability to focus on more satisfying work, increasing not only their productivity but their engagement and capacity for innovation too.

Get the most out of Microsoft Copilot

From boosting productivity and accessing invaluable data insights to streamlining office processes and supporting specialised teams, Copilot opens up exciting new possibilities for your business.

Ready to put Microsoft Copilot to work? Our ebook, The Kerv Transform Guide to getting Microsoft Copilot ready, gives you a thorough grounding in how get started.

If you need more help, the Kerv Transform team is here to assist you in optimising your processes and maximising the potential of tools like Microsoft Copilot. Contact us today to stay ahead in the world of AI and propel your business to new heights.