Cloudwell Conversations: John Becher on Unlocking the Full Value of Your Microsoft 365 Licenses

Kelvin Helmholtz (KH): Tell us a bit about your background and how you ended up at Cloudwell?

John Becher (JB): I started at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in an entry-level IT position as a document imaging technician. After about four years, I joined the SharePoint team, first splitting my time, then moving fully into SharePoint support.

I worked the help desk for SharePoint questions, was on the training team teaching the organization how to use it, and did migration work as we upgraded environments. I supported engineering departments with their specific SharePoint requirements — forms, workflows, business processes.

I met Chris, our CTO, through a neighbour friend and did a year of contracting with Cloudwell and then joined full-time.

KH: You’ve worked in Microsoft tools for a long time. What have you learned about how people actually use them?

JB: People are employed to do a specific job, and they don’t necessarily have time to think about whether they’re using the right tools to accomplish what they want.

If you’re in HR or marketing, you’re using what your manager taught you or what your predecessor showed you. You’re not stepping back to ask whether you’re using the best tool for the job.

Technology keeps evolving. People are familiar with how SharePoint or email worked before, but they don’t always adopt the new features that make things more efficient.

Everyone’s busy doing what they’re tasked to do. They don’t always take the extra time to learn something new, even if it would save time in the long run.

KH: Many teams still treat Microsoft 365 as just email and Office apps. Why do you think that happens?

JB: At the organizational level, you have to have a strategy to implement these tools.

It’s easy to stick with the simple ones. Everyone knows email. Everyone has used Word or Excel.

But going a step further, collaborating in real time, using Loop in meetings, building dashboards in Power BI, that requires someone to dedicate time to figuring out how those tools work together.

KH: What’s one of the biggest missed opportunities in getting value out of M365?

JB: Co-authoring is a big one.

We use Loop a lot internally to brainstorm projects, set up task lists, take notes during meetings.

Instead of one person writing a document and emailing it for review, multiple people can work in Word, Excel, or Loop at the same time, making it quicker and more efficient.

SharePoint and OneDrive provide the framework that allows that to happen. They’re the connecting layer that allows you to collaborate and co-author across those other tools.

KH: So, what would you say is the real value of Microsoft 365?

JB: All of these tools are mostly just to facilitate connection, between employees, or between employees and clients.

They’re tools to share our data, summarize our data, and make it easier to understand, whether that’s through dashboards, summaries, or shared workspaces.

That’s really the underlying value of the Microsoft 365 platform, enabling that connectivity.

KH: So, how do you help clients choose the right tool for the job?

JB: Many projects have clear end goals, but the first instinct is often to use the tool we’re most familiar with, rather than necessarily trying to figure out what’s the best tool for the job.

That’s where I see a lot of our value as an organization.

We take the requirements and apply our years of experience. We brainstorm internally and look for a solution that not only meets our client’s requirements but creates something easier to maintain over time, potentially with less IT intervention.

As requirements change, you want something flexible. Not just the thing that got you started the quickest.

KH: And is that where third-party tools sometimes come into the picture?

JB: Exactly. There’s a lot of third-party software where it was developed for a very specific business process. You have your HR software, your accounting software, other workflow engines where workflow is the specific thing that it does. And it’s great. It gets you to that end result really quickly.

It feels like you’re able to immediately get return on investment and utilize the tool. But now you have all these disparate systems that you have to figure out how they talk to each other, how you get your data from one place to another.

Whereas with Microsoft 365, some of the tools might require a little bit of work to accomplish your specific task, like creating a custom form or building a workflow in Power Automate, but in the end, these systems have connectors to SharePoint. They have connectors to Dynamics 365.

Wherever the data lives in Microsoft 365, you can have it all within that same ecosystem.

So, it can be a little more work up front, but it pays off in the long run when you’re talking about processes or systems that will be used for years.

You’re not just solving the immediate problem. You’re creating something that’s easier to extend, easier to report on, and easier to maintain as your business evolves. Instead of building workarounds or trying to connect systems that weren’t really designed to work together, you already have everything in one place, which just makes it easier to adapt over time.

KH: Can you share an example of Microsoft 365 tools working together?

JB: One example was a product tracking tool for an engineering group.

We used Power Apps as the form engine to collect structured data. Power Automate handled notifications and approvals. Power BI aggregated the data into dashboards for leadership. The forms were hosted on a SharePoint site, so employees knew exactly where to go.

So, you have SharePoint, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI all working together within the same ecosystem.

KH: What tips do you have for organizations that want to get more value from their licenses?

JB: Power BI is probably an easy win. Instead of building reports in Excel that live in one spreadsheet, you can create dashboards accessible to a wider group.

Automation is another big one for approvals, notifications, document routing.

Planner is something I use every day. I organize my work by client and due date. I can see what my week looks like and not get overwhelmed.

It’s simple, but it helps you focus on what you need to do instead of spinning your wheels.

Teams can also become your entry point, internal news, HR forms, calendars, OneDrive access, bringing everything into one place people already use.

KH: What’s one misconception about Microsoft 365 you wish more IT leaders would move on from?

JB: Maybe the idea that the toolset can’t accomplish what the organization needs.

It’s very rare that we’ve come across a business process that can’t be accomplished within the Microsoft 365 tool set.

It might not always be straightforward to envision how the tools fit together. If you don’t have deep expertise, you don’t necessarily know what each one can do.

But as the technology continues evolving, it’s worth staying open to how it can create efficiencies and free employees up to focus on their actual roles instead of fighting with technology.

KH: And how can Cloudwell help with this?

JB: We bridge the gap between business requirements and implementation.

We help create solutions that are easy to maintain and adaptable as processes change.

Creating something that’s adaptable is as important as creating something that achieves your initial goals and requirements. So, we’re able to provide that value.

We have lots of years of experience with a variety of businesses. We’ve worked with SharePoint since SharePoint 2007. We’ve seen what didn’t work before, and we’ve seen how the cloud environment has changed what’s possible.

That experience helps us visualize solutions and helps clients visualize how to achieve their end result.