50,000 small and medium sized businesses are making the move to Office 365 every month. But, making the decision to migrate or move to Office 365 can still be a daunting one to many businesses and organisations. The decision comes with many questions such as; how secure is Office 365? How safe will my email archives be? What licensing options are there? How disruptive will it be? How long will it take? What services does Office 365 provide? And so on…
Migrating IT can be risky, so it’s not surprising IT managers have lots of questions. But, with Office 365, the technology is mature and proven and the benefits are simple to measure and quick to deliver. When SMBs engage with a partner who has solid experience in the Office 365 migration process, the case for migrating to Office 365 stacks up pretty quickly. The main features and benefits include; anywhere access, collaboration, security, flexibility, reliability and cost savings.
What’s more, over 60 million commercial entities across the globe are already using Office 365 and 50,000 SMBs are moving to 365 every month. Office 365 users include small and medium-sized companies like Exceeding, Kamwell and Datix, as well as global corporations like Aston Martin, Marks and Spencer and British Airways. Office 365 is now such an obvious choice, companies have to have concrete reasons not to migrate to it. Why? Simply, it delivers so many benefits for so little expense.
Our consultants regularly guide clients through the migration process, ensuring that the move to Office 365 goes as smoothly as possible. Whatever size your company is, here are some of key reasons you might want to consider switching to Office 365:
Pay For What You Use
When migrating to Office 365 you only pay for what you use. So, if budget or cost control is a key consideration, a move to Office 365 might tick the box. With Office 365 there are a wide range of plans to choose from ranging from £3 to £30 per user per month. The most commonly bought plan costs £9 per user per month. Thus, if your company has 100 users, the monthly cost would be £900 per month. You can easily add on additional users too. So, if you hired an additional 10 members of staff one month, the total cost would be £990 per month.
Another huge benefit of Office 365 is that this flexibility works in both directions. If someone leaves, or you need to reduce temporary staff when a project ends, you stop paying for their Office 365 subscriptions as soon as they leave.
Mix and matching plans across your business makes Office 365 highly customisable and flexible. It allows you to give senior members of staff access to the full suite of Office 365 capabilities while limiting access to the rest of your workforce. The key thing is that you are in control. You decide and can change who has what capabilities at any time.
Access Your Email, Files and Data from Anywhere
In today’s 24/7 connected world, being able to work anywhere is fast becoming the new norm. When you move to Office 365, your files, email and data can be accessed on a variety of different devices including tablets, phones and computers. Simply sign in to Office 365 online and access your files, data and emails from your team site or OneDrive. You will then be able to click on the name of an Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote or PDF document which will open in your browser in Office Online, enabling you to work on the go. Of course, this relies on having a stable and reliable internet connection or access to wi-fi.
Find out how Strand Writing and Design used a an Office 365 migration to make it more agile.
Work Collaboratively and Easily License Other Products and Services Through Office 365
If you work in an environment where your employees are spread across multiple locations or work remotely, Office 365 offers seamless, collaborative working by using apps like OneDrive Business and SharePoint to share files. For online meetings, Skype for Business offers crystal clear voice and video capabilities and a group chat facility with attachments, notes and integrated meetings. Those who already utilise tools such as Slack or Trello often find Skype for Business an even better alternative for collaborative working. So, even if your business has offices in different counties, you can connect them all as if they are in one central location via Office 365.
Licensing other products and services through Office 365 is simple. If you find you need more powerful apps such as Visio, Project or Power BI, these can be easily added to your Office 365 account. Mix and match to find the right mix of Office 365 apps to suit you and your business.
Find out how Exceeding embraced collaborative and remote working with an Office 365 migration.
Utilising Business Analytics Through Office 365
Having access to your key business data can be problematic if it is spread across various locations and sources. Office 365’s Power BI enables you to connect to multiple data resources and keep them refreshed in real time. You can build a bespoke data model, dashboards and reports and publish them to your secure web server to share with others at the touch of a button. You can keep on top of your business and what’s happening everywhere from your tablet or phone. Whether you’re at the airport, a conference or a café, you always have real-time insights into your most important data and information. Our consultants can provide help, support and advice on the best ways to get the most out of accessing your business data through Power BI.
Data Resilience
Your data is always safe and secure with three copies of your data kept in Microsoft’s primary datacenter and another backup in a twinned data centre in a different region. Your data is stored primarily in the UK with a secondary back-up stored in the EU, and all within EU data protection regulations. If you ever need the latest back up of your data, it can be accessed quickly and easily. And, of course, our consultants are always on hand to help with restoring your data from backups should the worst happen.
Find Out More
See our selection of our short video case studies featuring some of the successful Office 365 migrations we have managed for our clients.
If you would like to know more or receive a quote for us to migrate you to Office 365, get in touch with us today.
Contact our Microsoft specialists
Phone or email us to find out more – or book a free, no-obligation call with our technical consultants using the contact form.
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“Working with Compete366 has been like extending our own team – they are extremely and easy to work with. Right from the outset, it was clear what was on offer – everything was presented to us in a straightforward and uncomplicated way. They also provided just the right level of challenge to our developers and saved us time and money by suggesting better ways to implement our infrastructure.”
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“I have been delighted with the migration, where my team worked very hard, supported by expert advice from Compete366, and achieved everything in the timescale we had set out. Compete 366 made sure that we didn’t make any expensive mistakes, and guided us through the process”
