Microsoft Office 365 is emerging as one of the most necessary tools for businesses. This cloud-based version of Microsoft Office 365 provides centralized, manageable, and secure corporate data storage instead of storing data on multiple & off business premises. By seeing the current cloud business landscape, businesses are left with two choices whether to approach a complete migration to the cloud platforms like Office 365 or to keep on-premise IT infrastructure. According to the survey of Microsoft and Statista, Office 365 had crossed the 155 million business user base by the end of the year 2018, and they also stated that in that user base, 61% are small, 24% are medium, and 15% are the large size of businesses.

Benefits of Moving to Microsoft Office 365:

• Makes business processes more agile
• Cost-effective
• Enhances organizational communication
• Boosts employee productivity
• Manages business processes

Cautions for Migrating to Office-365:

Usually, the migrating steps to the cloud require complete dedication whether the business size is small, medium, or large. Knowing the requirement of shifting from an on-premise business system to Office 365 is also an important step. But the question is how? The analytical processes before moving to Office 365 take a lot of time maybe some months to understand the data behavior and then makes a list of priority data. If the migration steps are not followed perfectly then it is possible that businesses might lose their important data like scheduled work-related emails. As a result, employees might not receive such scheduled important emails and have to design that from scratch. That's why it's important to follow migration steps precisely because they offer a smooth way of moving from on-premise systems to cloud infrastructure. The cloud migration process is bandwidth-intensive and may defer as per business data size that's why it is important to study the bandwidth requirements for the entire migration process.

Office-365 Migration Steps:

Analysing Business Goals:

A perfect plan is achieved when a set of goals are defined by involving all stakeholders from the initial stage regardless of the business size. During the process, it is advisable to define clear & realistic goals for each individual department because every department has a different perspective to see a particular process. For example, a naive user sees a mobile device for just calling or gaming while a professional IT executive uses it for doing tasks, like emails, sheets, online meetings, etc.

Deployment Decisions by Considering Current Scenarios:

Setting up business goals helps to identify many pros and cons of current business processes including the approaches which are working well and those which need some improvements. For example, one business uses multiple individual licenses but using a unified or a complete business licensed package like Office 365 can help to improve employee interaction and overall productivity.

Eliminate the Blockers:

During the migration process, companies may face blockers, like internet connectivity, bandwidth problems, etc. Another blocker can be employees with a little lack of understanding about Office 365, not being flexible to new technology, fear of job loss, etc. Educating employees to be flexible and including them in the migration process as early as possible is the best solution to eliminate any sort of problem.

Set-Up and Customize Office-365 Accordingly:

A poorly planned strategy and leadership may lead the team to task failures regardless of the agreement of employees towards the Office 365 adoption. A well-set up and customized office-365 mitigate this type of failure. The company size matters in this type of process, for instance; a large company's IT staff may be able to set up and customize office-365 seamlessly while small or medium-sized IT staff containing companies may have to rely on the third-party provider’s services.

Employee’s Training Programs:

Employee training programs can help to achieve the best outcome in the migration process. As the new features and functionalities are emerging in Office-365 the requirement of employee training programs is necessary and must be conducted as mentioned in Step 1 because every user has a different level of abilities. At the time of planning training programs company also need to consider the roll-out planning and whether to choose a smooth or hard one.

Employee Support:

After the training program is concluded successfully employees have to perform hands-on experiments as they have learned but there are possibilities where they might get stuck somewhere and need proper solutions. A large size company which contains a robust IT department, it is possible for them to provide individual support to the employees within the premises. But if a company doesn’t contain such an IT department, then the best alternative is to take third-party support.

Be Progressive with Office 365:

As the reliance on cloud technology is increasing, migration to Office 365 is the preferred logical step for companies. Also, they need expert guidance to form a comprehensive and strategic execution plan with continued support. CloudStakes Technology offers a complete package of Office-365 solutions like Office 365 Setup and Installation, and Troubleshooting. We have an in-house team of certified cloud engineers who are dedicated to helping companies in accomplishing their business aspirations.