Microsoft Teams Review: Is It Right for Your Business?

What Is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is a collaboration platform that combines chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integrations in a single interface. It launched in 2017 and has become one of the most widely used business communication tools in the UK — partly through organic adoption and partly because it's included in Microsoft 365 plans that organisations were already buying.

Teams serves as the default communication tool for a large proportion of UK businesses, from 10-person SMEs to government departments with tens of thousands of users. This review is written from the perspective of a UK managed IT services provider advising SMEs on whether Teams is the right fit.

Core Features

Meetings

Teams meetings are genuinely good. Scheduling integrates directly with Outlook, join links work reliably for both internal and external participants, and features like recording, transcription, background blur and breakout rooms all function as expected on paid plans. Meeting quality holds up well on typical UK business broadband connections, and the lobby management features give organisers appropriate control over external attendees.

Chat and Channels

The persistent chat model — where conversations are searchable and organised by team and channel — works well once a business has established naming conventions. The main risk with channels is uncontrolled proliferation: businesses that let every project create its own team end up with an unmanageable structure within 18 months. Governance matters from day one.

File Collaboration

Files shared in Teams are stored in SharePoint and OneDrive, which means they're accessible, co-editable and backed by Microsoft's storage infrastructure. The integration between Teams and the Office apps (particularly the ability to open and edit a Word or Excel file directly in a Teams tab) is one of the strongest arguments for Teams over standalone messaging platforms.

Teams Phone

Teams Phone — replacing a traditional phone system with Teams calling — is a viable option for most UK businesses and represents genuine cost savings when done correctly. The key caveat is that it requires proper configuration: dial plans, emergency calling location services, and calling plan or SIP trunk setup all need to be done by someone who knows what they're doing. Done well, it reduces hardware costs and simplifies remote working. Done badly, it creates reliability problems that are difficult to diagnose.

What Teams Does Well

• Deep Microsoft 365 integration — if you're already on Microsoft 365, Teams adds collaboration without adding another vendor
• Meeting features — recording, transcription, breakout rooms, background blur and lobby management are all functional and well-implemented
• Security and compliance — particularly on Business Premium and Enterprise plans, Teams benefits from Microsoft's compliance tooling (retention policies, eDiscovery, DLP)
• Scale — from 5-person SMEs to enterprise deployments, Teams handles different scales without needing a platform change
• Admin controls — the Teams Admin Centre gives IT administrators granular control over features, policies and user permissions

Where Teams Falls Short

• Complexity — Teams has a lot of configuration options, and default settings aren't always appropriate for business use. External sharing policies, guest access, information barriers — these require IT expertise to configure correctly
• Channel and team sprawl — without governance, organisations end up with dozens of abandoned teams and channels, making it hard to find anything
• Notification management — Teams notifications can be overwhelming. Getting the balance right between staying informed and being constantly interrupted takes deliberate configuration
• Performance on older hardware — Teams is resource-intensive. On older PCs with limited RAM, it can noticeably affect device performance
• Mobile experience — the mobile app covers the basics but managing channels, settings and complex tasks is cumbersome on a phone

How Teams Compares to Alternatives

Teams vs Slack

Slack has a more refined messaging UX and a stronger ecosystem of third-party integrations. For software development teams or tech-forward businesses, Slack is often preferred. For businesses that live in Office apps — Word, Excel, Outlook — Teams integrates more naturally. Slack also adds significant cost once you add telephony and video conferencing, whereas Teams includes these at a reasonable plan price.

Teams vs Zoom

Zoom is primarily a meetings platform and does that extremely well. Its simplicity and external participant experience (no account required, reliable joins) make it popular for client-facing meetings. Teams is the better choice if you want a single platform for chat, meetings, file collaboration and calling. Zoom requires separate tools or add-ons for the rest.

Teams vs Google Workspace

Google Meet and Google Chat form Google's equivalent platform. For businesses already on Google Workspace, Google's collaboration tools are the natural fit. For businesses on Microsoft 365, Teams provides a more cohesive experience with Office apps than switching to Google would allow.

Our Assessment

For the majority of UK SMEs already on Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams is the right choice. The integration with Office apps, Exchange and SharePoint means the collaboration tools are already paid for and just need to be deployed properly. The key to a successful Teams rollout is governance from the start: clear naming conventions for teams and channels, sensible external sharing policies, and user training on where different types of communication should live.

If your business is evaluating Teams for the first time, or looking to improve an existing Teams deployment, AMVIA provides Teams configuration and ongoing management as part of our Microsoft 365 support service.