Migration to Microsoft 365: Sneak Peek at our NEW Step-by-Step Guide

Many organizations opt to migrate their on-premise Exchange email, documents, and important data to cloud-based services like Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365).

That’s because there are a host of benefits that come with storing information in the cloud, for example, according to Osterman Research, the most common benefits enterprise experiences from a migration to Microsoft 365 include:

• Improved cybersecurity
• Improved organizational communications
• Better management of corporate records
• Improved productivity
• Lower IT operations costs

To reap these rewards, businesses must first understand what the migration process entails, and how to properly plan for the initiative to protect data, money, and productivity.

Why Preparation is Key During Migration to Microsoft 365

Despite the number of benefits, the actual migration process is complex. The number of mailboxes you need to migrate, the year of Exchange you’re running on, the types of files you have – and more – will all dictate the complexity of your migration.

It’s critical for businesses of all sizes to carefully research, plan, and communicate the migration process, and its steps, from pre-migration to post-migration to avoid:

• Chain-of-custody problems
• Corrupted data
• Loss of sensitive data
• Violation of privacy statues
• Lost productivity from employees

The 9 Steps to Properly Migrating to Microsoft 365

With the help of Osterman Research, we’ve compiled a whitepaper to help organizations start planning and executing their own migration. In our whitepaper, you’ll get a 9-step checklist that will help you decrease frictions during the migration process.

Here’s a sneak peek at the first three steps:

1. Decide if you will migrate specific capabilities from Microsoft 365 or the entire suite.
2. Determine which plan meets your needs – from capabilities to cost.
3. Discover what the limitations of Microsoft 365 are, and how it can affect your migration.

Our whitepaper will also cover the appropriate tools to use during the migration process and will help you understand when it’s best to utilize a third-party service for part (or all) of the migration.

Finally, we’ll discuss the importance of backup during the migration process. Data backup helps ensure that your data is safe during the migration, and post-migration, when the native capabilities of Microsoft 365 aren’t enough for your organization.

Learn more about proper migration to Microsoft 365, from planning and executing to ensuring data backup and business continuity.