Microsoft Office 365 is no more a buzzword when it comes to the digital transformation of an organization. Rather, it has evolved into a necessity. A collaborative workspace, easy access to emails, files, and folders while working remotely have helped organizations to sustain their operation in the pandemic. An office 365 transformation has been the key for operation sustenance for organizations of all sizes during the pandemic.
How Can Microsoft Office 365 Services Boost Your Digital Transformation in the Current Times?
Adopting the Microsoft Office 365 services was already a part of every organization’s digital transformation roadmap. The economic impact of the Covid 19 pandemic and its mutated forms had accelerated the adoption of this service. Here’s a look at the top benefits:
Fostering a Collaborative Workspace
Microsoft office 365’s cloud storage enables remote access to emails and important business data irrespective of their work location. The ability to exchange files and other work-related data such as emails, contacts allow multiple departments across an organization collaborate on projects even in a remote working situation. Employers will have the ability to coordinate and manage off-site vendors and employees and keep all of them always updated on the progresses of projects.
Collaboration is supported by virtual meetings and chat sessions over the Microsoft Teams software. The SharePoint and OneDrive applications enable sharing workspaces, cloud storage of files, and collaboration in real-time.
An organization’s on-premises Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) user accounts can be aligned with the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to experience a favorable sign-in experience for employees.
Maintaining a Work Life Balance
One of the biggest downsides of the remote working scenario is the extended work hours. This have been taking a toll on employees’ work life balance.
To address this, Microsoft has updated the Office 365 tool suite with new features that can provide employees respite from workload.
The MyAnalytics feature designates a particular time period as the focus time every day. An automatic booking option can be set to avoid setting meetings during lunch hours.
The reflection feature allows employees to identify and track their mental health. This data is kept strictly private to the employee.
The addition of the virtual commute feature assists employees to complete their tasks by EOD and plan their work schedule for the next day to keep aside enough personal time.
Better Security Measures
Hackers have their own ways of breaking into an unprotected Microsoft 365 email account.
To contain such incidents, Microsoft has added the Two-factor authentication (2FA) to a user’s email account. This restricts occurrence of phishing email sites, password spraying, and credential stuffing attempts.
The Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS) sends alerts to users in case of three potential security breach attempts which are:
- Same user logging in from two separate geographic locations
- Creation of a new inbox rule for a user’s account
- Number of failed attempts to log into an account
Cost Optimization Prospects
As enterprises are still recovering from the financial shock exerted by the Covid 19 pandemic, cost optimization will have a larger focus in their business strategy. In such a situation, digital transformation office 365 is their best bet.
The subscription-based services allow payment as per usage. The licensing costs include all the upgrade expenses. This reduces the chance of recurring overheads. Enterprises can also add additional users to their monthly user plan.
The payment plans are highly flexible and customizable. This allows allocating and reallocating access to the Microsoft office 365 tool suite based on the dynamic usage across departments.
Roadblocks Faced During Digital Transformation Using Microsoft Office 365 Services
The perks of migrating to Microsoft Office 365 services are endless. But the process of migration to this platform is complex and lengthy and has several roadblocks that must be addressed right in the beginning. Here’s looking at some of the roadblocks that impact enterprises’ digital transformation office 365:
Complex Hybrid Solutions
Most enterprises now prefer to retain a part of their workload from their existing environment while transitioning the rest to the Office 365 platform. This is termed as a hybrid Microsoft Office 365 migration.
Large enterprises have a particular affinity towards a hybrid solution as they have multiple users who have their distinct ways and platforms to use data. Such a hybrid mode of migration is complex and requires special expertise. The lack of Microsoft support for hybrid migration adds to its complexity.
Poor Network Quality
Bad network connectivity can cause intermittent downtime during the migration process. This not only delays the migration process but can also result in significant data loss. Post migration, inadequate network quality will impact the functioning of Microsoft tools. For instance, poor network quality will trigger slow and continuous files and pages loading.
Complex Security Requirements
Transitioning legacy archives of data to the Office 365 platform can have security implications. It can be a riskier proposition for highly regulated sectors such as banking and healthcare as there is a lingering risk of exposure of customer data.
Despite the benefits offered by the Office 365 platform, CIOs have their reservations against switching to a cloud-based office 365 platform. They perceive a multi-tenant server for data sharing as a potential security threat.
How We Assist You Overcome Office 365 Transformation Roadblocks?
Maneuvering these roadblocks is complex but not an impossible task. But this should not take away the focus from the core objectives of an organization.
We provide end-to-end support for office 365 transformation that addresses all the possible migration challenge and allows enterprises to focus on their core functions.
Our experts take a phased approach for hybrid migration. This approach involves splitting data to migrate to an on-premises environment and cloud by introducing single sign-on (SSO) with active directory federation services. This allows employees work on both environments.
Likewise, to make the shift smooth we use advanced migration technologies that is suitable for an IT environment that suffers from low Internet bandwidth. Using these technologies, we can bypass the huge volumes mailbox data to prioritize migrating lower data volume. Once the rest of the data is migrated, we move over to migrating the mailbox data.
To build adequate security, our migration experts ensure role-based access control within Azure AD to limit administrator control. We enable multi-factor authentication for all users across departments. We enable service encryption by using Customer Key which helps enterprises to control their own encryption keys.
Who We Are and Why Are We Considered as An Industry Authority?
This article is brought to you by Flatworld Edge, a Microsoft-certified Tier-1 Cloud Solution specializing in providing end-to-end support to Office 365 migration. We also specialize in migration consulting service, licensing and tenant establishment, and Microsoft workplace analytics to improve workplace productivity. We support staged, DirSync and Single Sign-on, Cutover, and Hybrid migrations. You can bank on our wide expertise to migrate from email, Google G Suite, SharePoint, Outlook and Exchange 2010 to Office 365.
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