JULY 2023
With the number of meetings growing and calendars becoming increasingly booked, IT and business leaders are looking for tools to lessen the load on employees and help them focus on higher-value work while also making virtual collaboration more secure. Expected benefits of investing in Microsoft Teams Premium include freeing employees’ time through AI, automation, and scheduling functionality while improving the security position of the company through watermarking, end-to-end encryption, and sensitivity labels.
Microsoft Teams Premium is an upgrade to the Microsoft Teams collaboration suite and is powered by AI technology, such as OpenAI’s generative pre-trained transformer (GPT).1 Teams Premium offers users advanced collaboration functionality such as intelligent recap, end-to-end encryption, and meeting customization. These capabilities are designed to make meetings more productive and engaging, events more accessible, organizations more secure, and employees’ time more focused on higher-value tasks.
Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (PROI) enterprises may realize by deploying Teams Premium.2 The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of Teams Premium on their organizations.
To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed six representatives from five organizations and surveyed an additional 243 representatives with experience using and/or evaluating Teams Premium. Because Microsoft recently released many features of Teams Premium, this analysis focuses on just the features that interviewees and survey respondents were able to evaluate. However, it is possible that additional features released in the future may provide incremental business value that Forrester is not currently able to evaluate.
For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ and survey respondents’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization that is a multibillion-dollar organization serving mostly B2B channels with employees using Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 licenses.
Interviewees and survey respondents noted that prior to using Teams Premium, their organizations and employees struggled to keep pace with increasing numbers of meetings. However, prior attempts to improve virtual meetings yielded limited success that left employees with overbooked calendars and resulted in meetings and events that were not as productive as possible.
After the investment in Teams Premium, the organizations saw improvements in their pilot test groups and are either already expanding their Teams Premium usage or planning for expansion in the near future. Key results from the investment include faster review of key meeting moments using intelligent recap, time saved using meeting templates and virtual appointments, saved labor from live webinar translations, and avoided cost of third-party licenses.
Consulting Team: Chris Layton, Kara Luk
PROI
PROJECTED BENEFITS PV
PROJECTED NPV
TOTAL COSTS
Quantified projected benefits. Three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the composite organization include:
Faster review of key meeting moments using intelligent recap. The composite organization invests in Teams Premium in part to provide employees with a safe way to leverage generative AI through its intelligent recap feature. This generates intelligent notes for meetings as well as an audit trail of decisions. Over three years, this reduces the composite’s time to catch up from missed meetings by 50% to 90%, which is worth between $323,000 and $639,000 to the organization.
Faster review using intelligent recap
$323,000 to $639,000 in labor savings
More efficient scheduling using meeting templates and virtual appointments. Employees using virtual appointments and meeting templates as a part of Teams Premium save time scheduling large numbers of meetings. Much of this is due to automated functions in Teams Premium that allow employees to reallocate time to higher-value tasks. Over three years, reducing this time by 40% to 80% is worth $328,000 to $689,000 to the composite organization.
Saved labor from automatic live translation for captions in webinars. Teams Premium enables the composite organization’s hosts to provide live caption translation during webinar events, which supports multiple languages in real time. This saves the hosts several hours per webinar because they no longer need to manually translate their speeches. This also allows the composite to reach new audiences. Over three years, the labor savings are worth between $29,000 and $116,000 to the composite organization.
Avoided cost of third-party licenses. In addition to saving employees time, Teams Premium also saves the composite organization third-party license costs. This is driven by the broad range of functionality that Teams Premium offers, which means the composite can consolidate the number of licenses employees require for video calling, meeting encryption, and webinar hosting. This saves the composite organization between $141,000 and $376,000 over three years.
“Teams Premium can give us confidence when dealing with classified information. For example, we could use watermarks or just encrypted meetings depending on the customer. That’s extra value. It opens new possibilities on how you can do hybrid meetings.”
Principal consultant, Sulava
Unquantified benefits. Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:
Protection of intellectual property. Teams Premium protects the intellectual property of the composite organization through watermarking, sensitivity labels, preset meeting security settings, and end-to-end encryption. This helps employees securely collaborate in virtual environments and provides stakeholders with trust that intellectual property is properly secured.
98% of survey respondents with experience using Teams Premium said it would help their organization avoid security incidents.
Base: 124 managers+ in IT functional roles at enterprise organizations in industries that use collaboration software
More effective meetings. With its average number of meetings growing significantly, the composite organization improves its “meeting culture” with Teams Premium. It does this by reducing the number of meetings employees need to attend, which allows meetings to become more effective. In turn, this lowers the cognitive load for many employees, because AI-generated notes are automatically available, and leaders can make better decisions.
Additional saved time after meetings. Teams Premium users in the composite organization save additional time after meetings by leveraging notes automatically provided by intelligent recap. This provides them with an automatic audit trail of decisions as well as assigned next steps.
Fewer errors and less misrepresentation. In addition to making meetings more effective for those participating, Teams Premium provides more accurate recaps and notes for those who do not join and who previously would need to refer to shorthand notes or potentially biased meeting recaps directly from attendees.
“If people were fully using Teams Premium, they would have [much] better meetings than they have today. I would love to see everyone utilize meeting options to their full extent, like role-specific meeting controls, watermarking, and intelligent recap.”
Lead of employee engagement and hybrid work, consumer packaged goods
Improved employee satisfaction. Teams Premium helps shift meeting culture and workloads, reducing administrative work and improving employee satisfaction. Employees reallocate their time during work to more important and engaging tasks and reduce time during non-work hours catching up from missed meetings.
Costs. Three-year, risk-adjusted PV costs for the composite organization include:
Teams Premium licenses (non-discounted). The composite organization pays the non-discounted price of $10 per employee per month for Teams Premium. Over three years, this costs the composite organization $231,000 in Teams Premium licenses.
Training, administration, and experimentation. The composite’s employees need brief training on Teams Premium to learn how to best leverage the new features as a part of their day-to-day work. In addition, employees spend time experimenting on their own, and IT leaders also require a small amount of time to administer licenses and evaluate the roles best suited for Teams Premium licenses. The cost of this combined labor is $164,000 for the composite organization over a three-year period.
Forrester modeled a range of projected low-, medium-, and high-impact outcomes based on evaluated risk. This financial analysis projects that the composite organization accrues the following three-year net present value (NPV) for each scenario by enabling Microsoft Teams Premium:
Projected high impact of a $1.4 million NPV and projected ROI of 360%.
Projected medium impact of a $904,000 NPV and projected ROI of 229%.
Projected low impact of a $426,000 NPV and projected ROI of 108%.
From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a New Technology: Projected Total Economic Impact™ (New Tech TEI) framework for those organizations considering an investment in Microsoft Teams Premium.
The objective of the framework is to identify the potential cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision. Forrester took a multistep approach to evaluate the projected impact that Teams Premium can have on an organization.
Interviewed Microsoft stakeholders and Forrester analysts to gather data relative to Microsoft Teams Premium.
Interviewed six representatives at five organizations using Teams Premium in a pilot or beta stage to obtain data with respect to projected costs, benefits, and risks. Surveyed an additional 243 IT collaboration suite decision-makers.
Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ and survey respondents’ organizations.
Constructed a projected financial model representative of the interviews using the New Tech TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees.
Employed four fundamental elements of New Tech TEI in modeling the investment’s potential impact: benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the increasing sophistication of ROI analyses related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology provides a complete picture of the total economic impact of purchase decisions. Please see Appendix A for additional information on the TEI methodology.
Readers should be aware of the following:
This study is commissioned by Microsoft and delivered by Forrester Consulting. It is not meant to be used as a competitive analysis.
Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that other organizations will receive. Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own estimates within the framework provided in the study to determine the appropriateness of an investment in Teams Premium.
Microsoft reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains editorial control over the study and its findings and does not accept changes to the study that contradict Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of the study.
Microsoft provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate in the interviews.
Role | Industry | Region | Employees |
---|---|---|---|
Lead of employee engagement and hybrid work | Consumer packaged goods | EMEA | 20,000 |
Principal consultant | Global systems integration Company: Sulava |
EMEA | <200 |
Head of operations and application support | Management consulting Company: BearingPoint |
EMEA | 6,000 |
Microsoft 365 product owner | Financial services | EMEA | 31,000 |
Senior innovation manager | Financial services | EMEA | 31,000 |
Chief information officer | Healthcare analytics | North America | <5,000 |
Forrester interviewed six representatives from five organizations with experience using Teams Premium at their organizations.3 Additionally, Forrester surveyed 243 cross-industry, global collaboration suite decision-makers at organizations using collaboration software from various providers, including Microsoft. For more information on the survey respondents and the organizations they represent, see Appendix C.
Interviewees noted that prior to piloting and investing in Teams Premium, their organizations experienced reductions in meeting efficiency. At the same time, technology costs were increasing as more specialized functionality (e.g., encryption, webinar hosting) was required. In fact, only 26% of survey respondents reported their organization has had no issues and that they are happy with their firm’s current, non-Teams Premium collaboration suite.4
The interviewees and survey respondents noted how their organizations struggled with common challenges, including:
A sharp increase in the number and size of meetings, and a simultaneous decrease in meeting effectiveness. As the organizations migrated to more virtual and hybrid environments during the past several years, the number of meetings significantly increased. This created a fear of missing out, and the audience sizes for meetings also increased. Not only did this require employees to spend more time in meetings, but the meetings themselves became less focused and less productive.
The Microsoft 365 product owner of a financial services company said: “Not only have meetings increased by 250%, but we also saw more senior people starting to join more meetings. This is a general trend across the industry, and [it] has several impacts. Junior people in the meetings don’t feel empowered and aren’t as active because you have someone senior there. And the senior people themselves are overloaded by joining everything and making decisions on everything.”
The chief information officer of a healthcare analytics organization said: “In my typical day, I’ve got meetings back-to-back, and I’m literally hanging up [from one meeting] at 10:29 to join a 10:30 meeting. I don’t have time to document what I’ve been talking about for the past 29 minutes.”
The Microsoft 365 product owner of a financial services organization said: “Our senior people used to all have personal assistants to organize meetings for them. That’s changed in the past few years [to] where only the most senior people have that benefit. So, we have a group of senior people who used to have someone help write minutes and organize their meetings, and they are now struggling without that help.”
“Our [number of] meetings [has] gone up 250% since [before the COVID-19 pandemic], and [it hasn’t] dropped back down. When we look at the Microsoft dashboards compared to our peers, our meeting practice is generally poor. There’s a huge amount of time and effort invested in these meetings, so anything that can help improve those interactions is going to be a big benefit for all of us.”
Microsoft 365 product owner, financial services
Growing concerns over security and intellectual property protection. Business and industry stakeholders had concerns about confidential information being shared across geographically distributed teams and outside of corporate firewalls. Further, lack of security features increased risk as 35% of survey respondents noted that limited security features are an issue with their organization’s current collaboration suite. The organizations invested in additional technologies and capabilities to try to mitigate these issues, but needs varied greatly across teams and created significant strain and costs to IT groups.
“Any data breach can cause a lot of damage to the brand. If we are not trusted anymore, customers won’t sign contracts.”
Head of operations and application support, BearingPoint
Improving employee productivity. With the significant increase in the number of meetings, maintaining and improving employee productivity was essential to decision-makers. However, employee productivity was negatively impacted by excess meeting administration work for IT and a lack of intelligence within collaboration suites. In fact, 33% of survey respondents said excess IT labor to set up meetings is a challenge for their organization while 34% noted that lack of intelligent features (e.g., AI-generated notes, personalized highlights) are an issue.6
Desire to own brands within virtual environments. External client meetings also shifted to virtual environments, creating challenges for organizations to control their brands across diverse technologies and platforms. In fact, 26% of survey respondents reported that the inability to personalize meetings or waiting room lobbies is an issue with their organization’s current collaboration suite.7 Business decision-makers looked for their IT groups to provide solutions that could better portray their company’s image to customers.
Interest in AI technology, but difficulty with adoption. Many interviewees mentioned that they had strong interest in finding ways to leverage AI technology in their business, but they struggled to find safe technologies and appropriate use cases. The Microsoft 365 product owner at a financial services organization said: “AI features are a disruptive technology, and there is a feeling that this is something we need to get ahead of before we fall behind. … If we don’t get on board, other [companies] will get ahead.”
The chief information officer of a healthcare analytics organization said, “We are just dipping our toe in the water with generative AI [and] experimenting with what I call ‘safe’ use cases. And one of those safe use cases is Teams Premium.”
“What I found is that people are very interested in branding and wanting to control the identity of how we are presenting ourselves. It also keeps customer confidence and trust that they know they are joining a Sulava meeting.”
Principal consultant, Sulava
The interviewees’ and survey respondents’ organizations searched for a solution that could:
After evaluating multiple vendors, the interviewees’ organizations chose Teams Premium and began deployment:
“It’s a big win for us in IT to give management a piece of technology that will help them with the problem. ... It’s low risk, easy to get in, and gets us good PR internally. I’ve looked at that as a priority because I think it will get us the most support.”
Microsoft 365 product owner, financial services
Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, a composite company, and a PROI analysis that illustrates the areas financially affected. The composite organization is representative of the five interviewees, and it is used to present the aggregate financial analysis in the next section. The composite organization has the following characteristics:
Description of composite. The composite organization is a global, multibillion-dollar organization that’s headquartered in North America and serves mostly B2B channels. Employees have Office E5 licenses and use Microsoft productivity tools such as Teams for communication and collaboration. Of these employees, 1,200 are identified to receive Teams Premium licenses. These employees include business leaders, project managers, media team members, client-facing consultants, analysts, IT administrators, and general knowledge workers. Prior to investing in Teams Premium, these employees used third-party licenses to encrypt their meetings and to provide webinar functionality. In addition, 20% of these Teams Premium users had previously been issued third-party video calling licenses and can stop using the additional software with Teams Premium.
Deployment characteristics. . In the first year, the organization gives 400 employees access to Teams Premium. This number increases to 800 employees in Year 2 and to 1,200 in Year 3. This group includes 120 administrative employees who schedule large numbers of meetings and 60 employees who host webinars.
Projected Benefits | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total projected benefits (low) | $124,400 | $332,400 | $576,600 | $1,033,400 | $821,010 |
Total projected benefits (mid) | $223,600 | $532,000 | $874,200 | $1,629,800 | $1,299,742 |
Total projected benefits (high) | $331,200 | $747,200 | $1,198,800 | $2,277,200 | $1,819,287 |
Evidence and data. Interviewees said one of the main reasons their organizations are interested in expanding Teams Premium licenses is to give more employees access to intelligent recap.
“If you miss a meeting, you could spend one hour [watching] the recording or ask someone else to spend 20 minutes reviewing notes with you. Or, if you use intelligent recap, it will take just 10 minutes to read it and catch up by yourself.”
Principal consultant, Sulava
Modeling and assumptions. Forrester leveraged interview and survey data to model the financial impact for the composite organization and assumes the following:
Results. This yields a three-year projected PV ranging from $323,000 to $639,000.
“If you miss a bunch of meetings, then you can use intelligent recap instead of scrolling your way through everything to find one particular point. You could definitely save a few hours a week when you’re sick, traveling, or have a full calendar.”
Lead of employee engagement and hybrid work, consumer packaged goods
Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A1 | Average weeks per year during which an employee needs to review detailed notes of missed meetings | Interviews | 10 | 10 | 10 | ||
A2 | Weekly time spent per Teams Premium user reviewing notes from missed meetings (hours) | Interviews | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
A3Low | Reduction in time to review notes from missed meetings using intelligent recap | Interviews | 20% | 40% | 50% | ||
A3Mid | Reduction in time to review notes from missed meetings using intelligent recap | Interviews | 40% | 60% | 70% | ||
A3High | Reduction in time to review notes from missed meetings using intelligent recap | Interviews | 60% | 80% | 90% | ||
A4Low | Time saved per Teams Premium user per year using intelligent recap (hours) | A1*A2*A3 | 10 | 20 | 25 | ||
A4Mid | Time saved per Teams Premium user per year using intelligent recap (hours) | A1*A2*A3 | 20 | 30 | 35 | ||
A4High | Time saved per Teams Premium user per year using intelligent recap (hours) | A1*A2*A3 | 30 | 40 | 45 | ||
A5 | Teams Premium users | Interviews | 400 | 800 | 1,200 | ||
A6 | Percentage of time recaptured | TEI standard | 50% | 50% | 50% | ||
A7 | Fully burdened hourly wage of a Teams Premium user | TEI standard | $41 | $41 | $41 | ||
AtLow | Faster review of key meeting moments using intelligent recap | A4*A5*A6*A7 | $82,000 | $328,000 | $615,000 | ||
AtMid | Faster review of key meeting moments using intelligent recap | A4*A5*A6*A7 | $164,000 | $492,000 | $861,000 | ||
AtHigh | Faster review of key meeting moments using intelligent recap | A4*A5*A6*A7 | $246,000 | $656,000 | $1,107,000 | ||
Three-year projected total: $410,000 to $803,600 | Three-year projected present value: $323,071 to $638,996 | ||||||
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Evidence and data. Prior to using Teams Premium, interviewees noted that administrative employees spent significantly more time scheduling meetings due to an increasing number of meetings along with more types and formats of meetings.
Modeling and assumptions. Forrester leveraged interview and survey data to model the financial impact for the composite organization and assumes the following:
Results. This yields a three-year projected PV ranging from $328,000 to $689,000.
“Meeting templates save time. But, also from the company’s perspective, [leaders] know that the security settings are right. This can save IT support as well.”
Principal consultant, Sulava
Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
B1 | Weekly time spent per administrative worker scheduling meetings (hours) | Interviews | 6 | 6 | 6 | ||
B2Low | Reduction in time to schedule meetings using Teams meeting templates and virtual appointments | Interviews | 30% | 35% | 40% | ||
B2Mid | Reduction in time to schedule meetings using Teams meeting templates and virtual appointments | Interviews | 50% | 55% | 60% | ||
B2High | Reduction in time to schedule meetings using Teams meeting templates and virtual appointments | Interviews | 70% | 75% | 80% | ||
B3Low | Time saved per administrative employee per year using Teams meeting templates and virtual appointments (rounded hours) | B1*B2*52 weeks | 94 | 109 | 125 | ||
B3Mid | Time saved per administrative employee per year using Teams meeting templates and virtual appointments (rounded hours) | B1*B2*52 weeks | 156 | 172 | 187 | ||
B3High | Time saved per administrative employee per year using Teams meeting templates and virtual appointments (rounded hours) | B1*B2*52 weeks | 218 | 234 | 250 | ||
B4 | Teams Premium users who schedule a large number of meetings | Composite | 40 | 80 | 120 | ||
B5 | Percentage of time recaptured | TEI standard | 50% | 50% | 50% | ||
B6 | Fully burdened hourly wage of an administrative employee | TEI standard | $30 | $30 | $30 | ||
BtLow | More efficient scheduling using Teams meeting templates and virtual appointments | B3*B4*B5*B6 | $56,400 | $130,800 | $225,000 | ||
BtMid | More efficient scheduling using Teams meeting templates and virtual appointments | B3*B4*B5*B6 | $93,600 | $206,400 | $336,600 | ||
BtHigh | More efficient scheduling using Teams meeting templates and virtual appointments | B3*B4*B5*B6 | $130,800 | $280,800 | $450,000 | ||
Three-year projected total: $412,200 to $861,600 | Three-year projected present value: $328,418 to $689,067 | ||||||
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Evidence and data. Some interviewees and survey respondents said their organizations produce webinars across several countries and in different languages as a core part of their business. To effectively reach diverse markets, the webinars either need a live interpreter or a manual transcript translation afterwards. Teams Premium allows these moderators to instead offer automatic caption translation, which reduces costs and allows them to reach even more markets.
Survey respondents expect live translations to save their organizations 2.8 hours of labor per webinar.
Base: 42 managers+ in IT functional roles at enterprise organizations in industries that use collaboration software
Modeling and assumptions. Forrester leveraged interview and survey data to model the financial impact for the composite organization and assumes the following:
Results. This yields a three-year projected PV ranging from $29,000 (low) to $116,000 (high).
“If you are a global organization with multiple nationalities, Teams Premium adds the possibility to create [real-time captions] for different languages, and that’s when you start adding value. You save time translating, but more importantly, you can reach people in their own language.”
Principal consultant, Sulava
Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
C1 | Monthly webinars per moderator that require language translation | Interviews | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
C2Low | Time saved per webinar using live caption translation (hours) | Interviews | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
C2Mid | Time saved per webinar using live caption translation (hours) | Interviews | 2 | 2 | 2 | ||
C2High | Time saved per webinar using live caption translation (hours) | Interviews | 4 | 4 | 4 | ||
C3Low | Time saved per webinar moderator per year (hours) | C2*12 months | 12 | 12 | 12 | ||
C3Mid | Time saved per webinar moderator per year (hours) | C2*12 months | 24 | 24 | 24 | ||
C3High | Time saved per webinar moderator per year (hours) | C2*12 months | 48 | 48 | 48 | ||
C4 | Teams Premium users who host webinars | Composite | 20 | 40 | 60 | ||
C5 | Percentage of time recaptured | TEI standard | 50% | 50% | 50% | ||
C6 | Fully burdened average hourly salary of a webinar moderator | TEI standard | $50 | $50 | $50 | ||
CtLow | Saved labor from automatic live webinar translation | C3*C4*C5*C6 | $6,000 | $12,000 | $18,000 | ||
CtMid | Saved labor from automatic live webinar translation | C3*C4*C5*C6 | $12,000 | $24,000 | $36,000 | ||
CtHigh | Saved labor from automatic live webinar translation | C3*C4*C5*C6 | $24,000 | $48,000 | $72,000 | ||
Three-year projected total: $36,000 to $144,000 | Three-year projected present value: $28,896 to $115,582 | ||||||
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Evidence and data. . Interviewees and survey respondents expect that Teams Premium will allow their organizations to either retire or partially reduce usage of third-party tools and licenses. While the specific tools vary by company, they tend to fall into the categories of third-party video calling tools, meeting encryption software, and webinar-hosting platforms.
“The end-to-end encryption is going to make it possible for companies to basically drop out of external protected meeting software and start using Teams Premium instead.”
Principal consultant, Sulava
Modeling and assumptions. Forrester leveraged interview and survey data to model the financial impact for the composite organization and assumes the following:
Results. This yields a three-year projected PV ranging from $141,000 (low) to $376,000 (high).
Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
D1 | Teams Premium users | Composite | 400 | 800 | 1,200 | ||
D2 | Percentage of Teams Premium users who previously used multiple video calling licenses | Composite | 20% | 20% | 20% | ||
D3Low | Per-user cost of third-party video calling license | Interviews | $150 | $150 | $150 | ||
D3Mid | Per-user cost of third-party video calling license | Interviews | $200 | $200 | $200 | ||
D3High | Per-user cost of third-party video calling license | Interviews | $300 | $300 | $300 | ||
D4Low | Subtotal: Avoided cost of third-party video calling licenses | D1*D2*D3 | $12,000 | $24,000 | $36,000 | ||
D4Mid | Subtotal: Avoided cost of third-party video calling licenses | D1*D2*D3 | $16,000 | $32,000 | $48,000 | ||
D4High | Subtotal: Avoided cost of third-party video calling licenses | D1*D2*D3 | $24,000 | $48,000 | $72,000 | ||
D5Low | Per-user reduction in cost of third-party meeting encryption license | Interviews | $8 | $8 | $8 | ||
D5Mid | Per-user reduction in cost of third-party meeting encryption license | Interviews | $16 | $16 | $16 | ||
D5High | Per-user reduction in cost of third-party meeting encryption license | Interviews | $25 | $25 | $25 | ||
D6Low | Subtotal: Avoided cost of third-party meeting encryption licenses | D1*D5 | $3,200 | $6,400 | $9,600 | ||
D6Mid | Subtotal: Avoided cost of third-party meeting encryption licenses | D1*D5 | $6,400 | $12,800 | $19,200 | ||
D6High | Subtotal: Avoided cost of third-party meeting encryption licenses | D1*D5 | $10,000 | $20,000 | $30,000 | ||
D7 | Webinar moderators who use Teams Premium | Composite | 20 | 40 | 60 | ||
D8Low | Per-user cost of third-party webinar hosting license | Interviews | $700 | $700 | $700 | ||
D8Mid | Per-user cost of third-party webinar hosting license | Interviews | $1,500 | $1,500 | $1,500 | ||
D8High | Per-user cost of third-party webinar hosting license | Interviews | $2,200 | $2,200 | $2,200 | ||
D9Low | Subtotal: Avoided cost of third-party webinar hosting licenses | D7*D8 | $14,000 | $28,000 | $42,000 | ||
D9Mid | Subtotal: Avoided cost of third-party webinar hosting licenses | D7*D8 | $30,000 | $60,000 | $90,000 | ||
D9High | Subtotal: Avoided cost of third-party webinar hosting licenses | D7*D8 | $44,000 | $88,000 | $132,000 | ||
DtLow | Avoided cost of third-party licenses | D4+D6+D9 | $29,200 | $58,400 | $87,600 | ||
DtMid | Avoided cost of third-party licenses | D4+D6+D9 | $52,400 | $104,800 | $157,200 | ||
DtHigh | Avoided cost of third-party licenses | D4+D6+D9 | $78,000 | $156,000 | $234,000 | ||
Three-year projected total: $175,200 to $468,000 | Three-year projected present value: $140,625 to $375,642 | ||||||
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Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:
Protection of intellectual property. Interviewees expect that watermark and meeting encryption functionality from Teams Premium would help their organizations keep confidential information secure. Out of 124 survey respondents using Teams Premium, 98% indicated it would help their organization avoid security incidents.15
Of survey respondents using Teams Premium’s end-to-end encryption, 85% noted that it could help their organization avoid at least one security incident each year. In addition, 25 out of 26 respondents with experience using Teams Premium’s watermarking said it would also help their organization avoid at least one security incident each year.16
The lead of employee engagement and hybrid work of a consumer packaged goods conglomerate said: “Applying watermarking can become very relevant. We do a ton of product launches in February, for example, and we would want to use watermarking in the Teams meetings with our distributors.”
The same interviewee also said: “For business executives speaking in highly confidential meetings about stock-sensitive information, applying watermarking would be very useful for them as well. I think watermarking will be a very relevant feature in the near future because it reduces risk.”
More effective meetings. While interviewees quantified the benefit of Teams Premium for those who missed and set up meetings, they also expect additional benefit to come to those who join the meetings live. This is due to several reasons:
“With Microsoft, our data stays within our tenant, and that is extremely valuable to us. If the Teams Premium security features help us further prevent these kinds of leakages and gives our CISO team a track record and history, that may be justification alone to give it to all employees.”
Chief information officer, healthcare analytics
“[By] Using intelligent recap, everyone can pay attention to the meeting, and someone doesn't always have to take notes. From my experience it is very difficult to be 100% focused on participating if you are multitasking with detailed note taking.”
Principal consultant, Sulava
Additional saved time after meetings. While interviewees expect using intelligent recap would help make meetings more productive, they also expect it to save time after meetings with less or no time required to summarize and formalize in-meeting notes. This would free employees to focus on higher-value tasks, such as acting on decisions made in the meetings.
Fewer errors and less misrepresentation. Some interviewees found that when employees take meeting notes for a broader group, their notes are unintentionally subjective and do not convey all other points of those present for the meeting. By having AI recap notes for the group, interviewees expect fewer errors would occur from missing data.
Improved employee satisfaction. Many interviewees expect the improvement to meeting culture and the reduction in effort to keep up with meetings would increase employee satisfaction. While some of the time saved would be reallocated towards higher-value tasks, other time saved would help prevent employees from working outside of business hours, which would improve work-life balance.
“A lot of these features will save people time and … sanity. They will result in better quality meetings overall.”
Lead of employee engagement and hybrid work, consumer packaged goods
The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Teams Premium and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:
Broader reach of more diverse audiences. Interviewees from organizations that specialize in webinars said they had been delayed in reaching markets because translation is costly and time-consuming. These companies found that because Teams Premium allows for automated and real-time translation, it not only reduces translation costs but also allows for instant and significant reductions in language barriers to their content.
A principal consultant at Sulava said: “I had a friend from Poland join my webinar using the Teams Premium captions and translation, and he was surprised by how good the experience was. It really works, and it’s a feasible option for people to join Teams Premium webinars [in other languages].”
Ability to address future security concerns and get ahead of complex issues. While interviewees expect that Teams Premium would provide direct benefit in improving their organizations’ security positions, they also expect it would help them get ahead of future security issues and complexity.
The principal consultant from Sulava said: “In the future, there will probably be more questions about securing meetings and reducing risks. We know that security and compliance is always a little bit behind AI, and the process is getting more complex. The question becomes, ‘Okay, how can we very clearly reduce risks of people sharing confidential information?’ And then you realize you can do that for $10 per user per month.”
Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Appendix A).
“Tools like Teams Premium can help us shift our meeting culture and improve outcomes. We can divide and conquer meetings, and there will be an audit trail afterwards to help us track actions and decisions.”
Senior innovation manager, financial services
“Even if folks try Teams Premium and [they] aren’t using it in their day-to-day [work] but the security team comes back and says, ‘This is helping us improve our security posture,’ that a pretty good deal for $10 a user.”
Chief information officer, healthcare analytics
Ref. | Costs | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Etr | Teams Premium licenses (non-discounted) | $0 | $48,000 | $96,000 | $144,000 | $288,000 | $231,165 |
Ftr | Training, administration, and experimentation | $61,424 | $10,695 | $56,242 | $61,900 | $190,261 | $164,134 |
Total costs (risk adjusted) | $61,424 | $58,695 | $152,242 | $205,900 | $478,261 | $395,299 |
Evidence and data. Giving employees access to Teams Premium costs a monthly license fee.
While many interviewees’ organizations were given discounted Teams Premium licenses for evaluation purposes, they evaluated the impact of Teams Premium based on the non-discounted monthly cost of $10 per user per month.
Modeling and assumptions. Forrester leveraged interview data to model the financial impact for the composite organization and assumes the following:
Risks. Results may not be representative of all experiences and the benefit will vary between organizations. As an organization sees success with Teams Premium, it may expand usage more broadly than what is modeled for the composite organization. While this would provide greater benefit, it would also increase the total license cost.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 0%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $231,000.
Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
E1 | Teams Premium users | Composite | 0 | 400 | 800 | 1,200 | |
E2 | Monthly Teams Premium license cost per user (non-discounted) | Interviews | $10 | $10 | $10 | $10 | |
Et | Teams Premium licenses (non-discounted) | E1*E2*12 months | $0 | $48,000 | $96,000 | $144,000 | |
Risk adjustment | ↑0% | ||||||
Etr | Teams Premium licenses (non-discounted) | $0 | $48,000 | $96,000 | $144,000 | ||
Three-year total: $288,000 | Three-year present value: $231,165 | ||||||
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Evidence and data. Interviewees’ organizations scheduled training sessions with employees to help them quickly adopt Teams Premium features and accelerate its time to value.
“It would require employees an hour to an hour-and-a-half with someone who has deep knowledge of the webinar features to understand how to utilize the features and for what types of scenarios.”
Lead of employee engagement and hybrid work, consumer packaged goods
Modeling and assumptions. Forrester leveraged interview data to model the financial impact for the composite organization and assumes the following:
“If you know what’s in Teams Premium, the configuration doesn’t take long.”
Principal consultant, Sulava
Risks. Results may not be representative of all experiences and the benefit will vary between organizations depending on the following factors:
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV of $164,000.
Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
F1 | Teams Premium trainers | Interviews | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
F2 | Time per trainer to develop and lead sessions (hours) | Interviews | 33 | 15 | 15 | 15 | |
F3 | Time per trainer for configuration, integration, and license administration (hours) | Interviews | 120 | 60 | 60 | 60 | |
F4 | Fully burdened hourly wage of a Teams Premium trainer | TEI standard | $62 | $62 | $62 | $62 | |
F5 | Subtotal: Labor to lead training sessions | F1*(F2+F3)*F4 | $18,972 | $9,300 | $9,300 | $9,300 | |
F6 | New Teams Premium users | Composite | 400 | 0 | 460 | 520 | |
F7 | Time per Teams Premium user to be trained and experimentation (hours) | Interviews | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
F8 | Fully burdened hourly wage of Teams Premium user | TEI standard | $41 | $41 | $41 | $41 | |
F9 | Subtotal: Labor to train Teams Premium users | F6*F7*F8 | $32,800 | $0 | $37,720 | $42,640 | |
F10 | Webinar moderators to train | Composite | 20 | 0 | 23 | 23 | |
F11 | Time to train a webinar moderator (hours) | Interviews | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
F12 | Fully burdened hourly wage of a webinar moderator | TEI standard | $41 | $41 | $41 | $41 | |
F13 | Subtotal: Labor to train webinar moderators | F10*F11*F12 | $1,640 | $0 | $1,886 | $1,886 | |
Ft | Training, administration, and experimentation | F5+F9+F13 | $53,412 | $9,300 | $48,906 | $53,826 | |
Risk adjustment | ↑15% | ||||||
Ftr | Training, administration, and experimentation (risk-adjusted) | $61,424 | $10,695 | $56,242 | $61,900 | ||
Three-year total: $190,261 | Three-year present value: $164,134 | ||||||
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These risk-adjusted PROI and projected NPV values are determined by applying risk-adjustment factors to the unadjusted results in each Benefit and Cost section.
Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total Costs | ($61,424) | ($58,695) | ($152,242) | ($205,900) | ($478,261) | ($395,299) |
Total Benefits (low) | $0 | $124,400 | $332,400 | $576,600 | $1,033,400 | $821,010 |
Total Benefits (mid) | $0 | $223,600 | $532,000 | $874,200 | $1,629,800 | $1,299,742 |
Total Benefits (high) | $0 | $331,200 | $747,200 | $1,198,800 | $2,277,200 | $1,819,287 |
Net Benefits (low) | ($61,424) | $65,705 | $180,158 | $370,700 | $555,139 | $425,711 |
Net Benefits (mid) | ($61,424) | $164,905 | $379,758 | $668,300 | $1,151,539 | $904,443 |
Net Benefits (high) | ($61,424) | $272,505 | $594,958 | $992,900 | $1,798,939 | $1,423,988 |
PROI (low) | 108% | |||||
PROI (mid) | 229% | |||||
PROI (high) | 360% | |||||
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The financial results calculated in the Benefits and Costs sections can be used to determine the PROI and projected NPV for the composite organization’s investment. Forrester assumes a yearly discount rate of 10% for this analysis.
New Technology: Projected Total Economic Impact (New Tech TEI) is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists vendors in communicating the value of their products and services to clients. The New Tech TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate and justify the projected tangible value of IT initiatives to senior management and key business stakeholders.
Projected Benefits represent the projected value to be delivered to the business by the product. The New Tech TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of projected benefits and the measure of projected costs, allowing for a full examination of the effect of the technology on the entire organization.
Projected Costs consider all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value of the product. The projected cost category within New Tech TEI captures incremental ongoing costs over the existing environment that are associated with the solution.
Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. Having the ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated.
Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.”
The present or current value of (discounted) cost and benefit estimates given at an interest rate (the discount rate). The PV of costs and benefits feed into the total NPV of cash flows.
The projected present or current value of (discounted) future net cash flows given an interest rate (the discount rate). A positive project NPV normally indicates that the investment should be made, unless other projects have higher NPVs.
A project’s expected return in percentage terms. ROI is calculated by dividing net benefits (benefits less costs) by costs.
The interest rate used in cash flow analysis to take into account the time value of money. Organizations typically use discount rates between 8% and 16%.
The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur.
Related Forrester Research
“Master Hybrid Meetings With These Five Steps,” Forrester Research, Inc., March 6, 2023
“Generative AI: The Top Six Things Tech Executives Need To Know,” Forrester Research, Inc., April 17, 2023
“What Makes A Future Fit Practice Strategy?,” Forrester Research, Inc., May 11, 2023
“Effectiveness Is The New Metric For Tech Value,” Forrester Research, Inc., June 23, 2021
1 Nicole Herskowitz, “Microsoft Teams Premium: Cut costs and add AI-powered productivity,” Microsoft, February 1, 2023.
2 Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists vendors in communicating the value proposition of their products and services to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of IT initiatives to both senior management and other key business stakeholders.
3 While most interviewees had seen results from piloting Teams Premium in their organization, the financial services organization was in an earlier phase of evaluation at the time of interview. As such, data provided by this organization focuses on a current state of collaboration and potential for improvement with Teams Premium. The projected financial analysis in this case study is based on observed benefits and costs of Teams Premium by other interviewees in later stages of pilot programs.
4 This information is based on a survey of 243 global collaboration suite decision-makers responding to the following question: “What issues, if any, do you see with your organization’s current collaboration suite?” A combined 26% of these respondents replied: “No issues; we are happy with our current collaboration suite.”
5 This information is based on a survey of 243 global collaboration suite decision-makers responding to the following question: “What issues, if any, do you see with your organization’s current collaboration suite?” A combined 35% of these respondents replied: “Limited security features.”
6 This information is based on a survey of 243 global collaboration suite decision-makers responding to the following question: “What issues, if any, do you see with your organization’s current collaboration suite?” A combined 33% of these respondents replied: “Excess IT labor to set up meetings,” and a combined 34% replied: “Lack of intelligent features, such as personalized follow-up items.”
7 This information is based on a survey of 243 global collaboration suite decision-makers responding to the following question: “What issues, if any, do you see with your organization’s current collaboration suite?” A combined 26% of these respondents replied: “Inability to personalize meetings/waiting room lobbies.”
8 This information is based on a survey of 218 global collaboration suite decision-makers asked to “Please rank your top five use cases according to the following features that you expect your organization will use regularly as a part of Teams Premium.” A combined 53% of these respondents replied: “Intelligent recap: (recording, transcript, notes, action items).”
9 This information is based on a survey of 218 global collaboration suite decision-makers asked to “Please rank your top five use cases according to the following features that you expect your organization will use regularly as part of Teams Premium.” A combined 59% of these respondents replied: “Advanced Virtual Appointments.”
10 This information is based on a survey of 101 global collaboration suite decision-makers who indicated some employees at their organization had begun using Teams Premium responding to the following question: “On average, what percentage of Teams Premium users do you expect to use meeting templates?” The average answer was 54%.
11 This information is based on a survey of 218 global collaboration suite decision-makers asked to “Please rank your top five use cases according to the following features that you expect your organization will use regularly as part of Teams Premium.” A combined 41% of these respondents replied: “Live translations for meeting captions.”
12 This currency conversion is based on $1.28 per £1.00 as reported by Google Finance on June 21, 2023.
13 Ibid.
14 This information is based on a survey of 218 global collaboration suite decision-makers asked to “Please rank your top five use cases according to the following features that you expect your organization will use regularly as part of Teams Premium.” A combined 57% of these respondents replied: “End-to-end encryption,” and a combined 52% replied: “Advanced webinar functionality.”
15 This information is based on survey responses from global collaboration suite decision-makers who said their organization had begun providing some users with Teams Premium. Of the 121 who indicated their organization used Teams Premium’s end-to-end encryption, 98% said they expect Teams Premium to help their organization “avoid security incidents in collaboration tools with end-to-end encryption.”
16 This information is based on survey responses from global collaboration suite decision-makers who said their organization had begun providing some users with Teams Premium. Of the 124 who indicated their organization used Teams Premium’s end-to-end encryption, 85% said they expect the functionality to help their organization avoid at least one security incident in a given year. And of the 26 who indicated their organization uses Teams Premium’s watermarking, 25 said they expect the same results.
Forrester Consulting provides independent and objective research-based consulting to help leaders succeed in their organizations. Ranging in scope from a short strategy session to custom projects, Forrester’s Consulting services connect you directly with research analysts who apply expert insight to your specific business challenges. For more information, visit forrester.com/consulting.
Forrester Research, Inc.© All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®, Technographics®, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to forrester.com.
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