Professional Support for Migrating to the Leading IT Solution for Business.
Why Migrate Your Business To Microsoft 365?
Microsoft 365 is a cost effective, industry leading IT solution that offers improved productivity, security, and scalability for your business with a proven ROI track record across multiple market sectors.
The post-pandemic shift to remote work has prompted many businesses to finally embrace the cloud, and the major benefits of migrating to Office 365/Microsoft 365 can be broken down into three key categories:
In any organisation, communication is vital. Within office Microsoft 365 team communication and file sharing between users both inside and outside of the organisation is simple, secure and instant across multiple device types.
Telephony systems, internal and external video calls, instant messaging and email are all possible 24/7 365 days a year with countless additional features to increase productivity and improve workflow.
The availability of all the latest office apps to every user makes programs and file types consistent and compatible throughout your organisation.
Email migration to the Microsoft Exchange Servers as part of the M365 solution provides piece of mind that important emails from your business domain are hitting inboxes and not junk folders through a verified safe sender policy.
For individual users access to their account is seamless across their chosen devices and even accessible anywhere in the world at any time through a web browser to give you the access your employees need.
Being able to jump seamlessly and securely between home laptops to office PC’s while using mobile in between is more important than ever in a world where remote and hybrid working is now the norm in many organisations.
BENEFIT FROM ACCESS TO THE SUITE OF TOOLS YOUR STAFF NEED TO PERFORM AT THEIR BEST.
While cloud security presents its own challenges with cybercriminals constantly trying to break in, one of the primary benefits of migrating to Office 365/Microsoft 365 is patches are automatically deployed, ensuring your network is primed against threat vectors as they emerge – sparing the blushes of careless admins who may otherwise get caught out.
The nature of the beast means security will always be a concern, but the Microsoft cloud offers relative safety in the form of:
• Threat protection: The Defender portal comprises anti-phishing features that identify email containing malware, immediately blocking delivery to greatly reduce the risk of zero-day exploits. The ‘prevention, detection and remediation’ model can boost your security posture.
• Privacy controls: Various options enable you to safeguard privacy, such as blocking access from open Wi-Fi networks and setting expiration dates for links shared externally. Additionally, data is encrypted in both rest and transit, and you can remotely wipe content from lost or stolen devices.
• Automatic MFA: The security default settings enable you to easily enforce multifactor authentication (MFA) – a process requiring users to confirm sign-in attempts via additional verification methods, such as receiving pin codes on phones. This significantly hardens your defence against brute-force attacks on usernames and passwords, while advanced conditional access policies can also be set.
• Information governance: To prevent data loss, sensitivity labels can be applied to specific users, groups, or content. Access is controlled and actions such as email forwarding, printing, and copy and pasting can be blocked to maintain compliance and preserve confidential information. With global data centres, multi-geo data residency is also available.
On the issue of compliance, the cybersecurity risks of PST files are well-documented and it’s practically impossible to comply with data privacy regulations such as GDPR and CPRA if you have them in your environment. However, one of the major Office 365 perks is virtually unlimited mailbox storage, which negates the need for users to create PSTs to save email content on personal drives.
When considering the benefits of migrating to Office 365/Microsoft 365, the opportunity to upgrade PST data should not be overlooked. Centralizing these files enables compliance management, lowers the risk of security breaches and removes a huge burden from admins who often face calls to fix corrupt data. As such, it’s highly recommended to locate and migrate PST files a part of your move to the cloud.
While the potential for improved productivity and security may be compelling, budgetary constraints can delay digital transformations. However, many organizations may have fallen into a ‘sunk cost fallacy’ – believing they need to stick with on-premises infrastructure because they’ve already invested heavily, even though moving could ultimately save money.
Various reports suggest the Microsoft 365/Office 365 ROI is comparably favourable, with a Forrester Total Economic Impact study advising a 135% return within three years.
When calculating the business benefits of cloud migration, it’s important to factor in:
Retiring legacy platforms: As you depart from on-premises networks, you’ll naturally see a reduction in server and energy costs. The need for ongoing maintenance will also be removed when migrating to Office 365/Microsoft 365, which is a significant bonus as legacy systems typically require specialist knowledge that is increasingly hard to find due to the changing landscape.
Scalability: Certainty over costs is one of the main Office 365 subscription benefits. You know precisely what to budget for and can customize plans to ensure each group has access to the best workloads for their roles. You can also scale up or down instantly, adding or removing licenses as business needs dictate – particularly useful if you experience rapid growth or seasonal fluctuations.
Support: As Microsoft gradually ends support for legacy Exchange servers, switching to the cloud will increasingly become a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ for most organizations. Support for Exchange 2013 is due to end in 2023, meaning it will become more exposed to security flaws as Microsoft dedicates greater attention to cloud services.
Data centralization: As regulated industries retain archive data for compliance, best practice has long been to store this content on third-party platforms – offsetting Exchange server restrictions. However, as virtually limitless storage is one of the key Office 365 benefits, it’s now economically viable to ‘bring your data home’ to Microsoft. A global cosmetics company estimates an 800% ROI by moving email archives to Office 365.
On the topic of archive centralization, migrating to Office 365 presents a chance to unify data governance practices by transforming journaled data into a cloud-friendly model.
The need for complete, immutable email records pre-dated Exchange storage capabilities, so content was typically offloaded to a journal repository. However, as Exchange Online offers in-place storage, it’s no longer necessary to maintain third-party journaling.
As such, moving to Exchange Online is the perfect time to convert journal archives into the modern, in-place format. The transformation process identifies the senders and recipients of each message, and places copies into a hidden portion of all associated mailboxes – effectively putting the data back where it belongs.
Ultimately, a journal archive migration can simplify eDiscovery and compliance while maximizing ROI, allowing you to retire legacy journaling in favour of cloud storage you’re already paying for.
In recent years remote and hybrid working has been increasing across all types of business and the need for employees to be connected anytime and anywhere has never been greater.
To enable secure and reliable business communications and to maintain optimum productivity, many businesses have opted to use Microsoft Exchange email server. Below are 3 advantages to Microsoft Exchange that make it the industry leader for hosting business email and a key feature of the benefits of an M365 migration.
Gain peace of mind that your email data is protected from getting into the wrong hands with state-of-the-art threat protection and multi-layered spam filters. Microsoft are known to have spent billions on the development of security solutions that work in tandem with the Exchange Cloud Servers making it the most secure and confidential option on the market.
The Exchange cloud servers are automatically updated by Microsoft, alleviating the need to do so if you were otherwise hosting email on your own business server. In addition to this the servers are specifically built and developed for the primary purpose of delivering professional email (unlike combined web hosting servers). This allows Microsoft to offer the security and storage space you need as you grow without the need for any expensive upgrades.
Increase Productivity and Connectivity Inside and Outside of your Business.
The above functionality extends to a mobile app for using teams on the go to receive and make calls as well as access to all of its other features. Adding additional participants to calls whilst they are live is simple, with a powerful search function available to find users both inside and outside of your organisation.
Microsoft Teams offers highly competitive pricing compared to traditional phone networks with features in the standard business package including;-
Microsoft Teams delivers an exceptional standard of call quality with crystal clear HD audio. This is delivered via dedicated servers spanning across the globe giving superior quality calls wherever you are in the world. With many VOIP providers delivering poor voice quality on calls compared to expensive traditional telephony it makes MS Teams the smart option for your business.
Auto-Attendants can be configured to answer calls, give virtual prompts and route calls as and when required. Setting operational times for the auto attendants is also possible to answer calls out of business hours or during holiday periods. This functionality can be setup on a per individual user basis or for a group of users to offer maximum flexibility. Each user can also have a personal voicemail service which includes a highly accurate transcription of the message using MS Teams cutting edge voice recognition technology.
Here at ACIT Consultancy we offer full comprehensive support to businesses in making their migration to a new Microsoft 365 tenancy.
Our service package includes initial setup of your domain and user accounts, moving company data safely to the cloud, email migration to Microsoft servers, telephony configuration where required and user device organisation. Our role in the full tenancy setup is to both guide you in understanding the system as well as efficiently implementing your new IT solution. We also offer ongoing administration services to support you as your business grows.
With a wealth of experience in the IT sector we have the know how and skills to enable you to leverage the maximum potential from your M365 tenancy and achieve your gaols as a forward moving business.
ACIT Consultancy offer a professional and hassle-free Microsoft 365 migration service which can transform the way your business operates. With our team of dedicated IT professionals we have the knowledge and skills to deliver a solution to our customers that really makes a difference.
With over 15 years of experience in Professional IT Solutions, we have the know how and skills to deliver a comprehensive M365 migration service.
We offer a free consultation to best understand your needs as a customer and guide you through each step of your migration.
In addition to supporting you through your migration we offer a range of ongoing support packages to assist your business when you need it most for complete peace of mind.
ACITC offers M365 packages for both office based and work from home business customers. Get in touch and we will advise the best migration solution for you.
Call 01823 793020, 07825 848308 or click this link to mail Ash at ACITC using hello@acitc.co.uk
Call 01823 793020, 07825 848308 or click this link to mail Ash at ACITC using hello@acitc.co.uk
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