Transition to the Microsoft 365 Cloud

Is your organization considering a move to the cloud? Or has your company embraced the cloud and is utilizing so many services that they’re becoming difficult to support?

Consolidating services to the M365 cloud can help your organization on several fronts. Microsoft 365 offers several business applications in a single suite while also integrating with hundreds of other necessary business systems. Collaboration, project and task management, records management, and process automation all connect in Microsoft 365.

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M365 also helps organizations reduce office space costs by enabling on-site employees to move to permanent, secure, and remote positions. It allows for valuable hybrid collaboration while reducing travel costs.

The security solutions within Microsoft 365 greatly reduce the number of successful end user security attacks. Compliance solutions help reduce your risk by managing alerts on potential insider risk, protecting sensitive information, and quickly finding and responding to regulatory requests.

BENEFITS OF THE M365 CLOUD

• Lowered costs for hardware, maintenance contracts, office space and travel
• Increased collaboration opportunities
• Improved continuity and mobility, allowing employees to work from anywhere and any device
• Enhanced security features
• Connection to hundreds of third-party platforms

BENEFITS OF CONSOLIDATING VENDORS 
Consolidating to a single vendor can cost much less than choosing different vendors for multiple capabilities. Microsoft 365 includes many of the capabilities for which you are currently paying other vendors.

• Lowered overhead incurred to maintain accounts and access
• Security visibility and control across multiple cloud platforms
• Lowered costs connecting platforms and data
• Reduced licensing costs
• An IT team with more time to focus on high value activities

Microsoft 365 helps organizations transform and streamline business processes through workflows, dashboards, AI capabilities, and more.

QUESTIONS FOR YOUR STAKEHOLDERS 
Think you may need to consolidate to the M365 cloud? While not an exhaustive list, these questions provide a good starting point for the conversation and planning.

Remote work 

• What costs can you save by enabling remote work?
• How much time can be saved by allowing work from anywhere?
• How will you support remote work?

Licensing & Support 

• How much are you spending each month in licensing?
• How much are you spending on support services?
• How much does it cost to connect these systems and their data, whether dynamically or manually?
• How many current services offer overlapping features?

Collaboration and Automation 

• How can you deliver new ways to drive workforce efficiency?
• How can your employees collaborate securely with vendors, customers, and partners?
• What workstreams can be streamlined and automated?

Security 

• If you allow BYOD (bring your own device), how do you secure company data on personal devices?
• How do you monitor and respond to risky sign-ins?
• How do you protect your administrator accounts?
• How do you prevent accidental sharing of sensitive information?
• What blind-spots do we have with our current technology and/or configuration?

MAKE YOUR TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP
Now that you have an inventory of services, processes, needs, and costs, it’s time to make your plan.

• What services do you need and what can be discarded?
• What processes do you need to document, streamline, automate?
• What security features do you need?
• What changes need to be made to your Governance plan?
• What training is needed for your admins, support desk, champions, end users?
• What communications are needed?

Define all items, prioritize, estimate effort, and assign owners and timelines.

WANT SOME HELP
Our experienced consultants can help with your IT strategy and road mapping efforts. We also offer a Transition to the Cloud Workshop to guide you through all these scenarios to create your roadmap and action plan.

Included in the workshop:

• Learning and understanding your business objectives and envisioning scenarios to enable secure work from anywhere
• Evaluating options and implications to enable secure remote work scenarios
• Defining activation plans, and risks and mitigations for a successful deployment and adoption
• Defining a secure journey to the cloud with Microsoft 365 scenarios  
• Defining hybrid work scenarios
• Understanding Microsoft Teams policies including messaging, meetings and guest access
• Reviewing Identity and security policies including securing mobile devices, password reset, multi-factor authentication and conditional access
• Creating an action plan for deployment and adoption of transition to cloud scenarios

Reach out to learn more about our Transition to the Cloud Workshop.

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