Migrating to Office 365 Email Using a Managed Service Provider
Businesses are doing anything possible to save money without sacrificing their service quality. Technological infrastructure is the cornerstone of any company. For this matter, efficient operations are of utmost vitality. However, doing this by yourself can be expensive and time-consuming. This is where a managed service provider comes in. Businesses are turning to MSPs to streamline their services and improve their IT responsiveness. This approach has when it comes to migrating your email to Microsoft Office 365.
You might wonder why you actually need a managed service provider to facilitate Office 365 when you could buy the Office 365 directly from Microsoft. Note that the choices you make to manage Office 365 make a huge difference as far as speed, end-user experience, and licensing costs are concerned. As such, you should resort to the expertise of a professional Microsoft 365 Email managed service provider.
Using third-party migration services can foster dynamic growth in your business without breaking your budget. If you want to save money on hardware upgrades and other IT-related services, consider deploying an MSP.
Here are 6 more reasons you need a third-party Managed IT Service Provider to switch to Office 365 email.
1. Compliance with GDPR and NIST
In order to comply with General Data Protection Regulation, your company should scrutinize and apply due diligence to the prevailing data security protocols. GDPR is technologically neutral and gives scanty guidelines on the subject matter. Its main objective is to put theoretical privacy into practice but this achievement depends on the processors and controllers of personal information. For this matter, many companies face practical problems as they are threatened with heavy administrative charges.
One of the key principles of Office 365 is data compliance. There are certain policies your organization must meet to operate in different fields. These regulations could include your internal policies as well as the external regulatory requirements which differ from one region to the other.
By using a third party migration service, your Office 365 acquires built-in features that will enable your clients to meet the internal compliance requirements as well as the industry regulation. Formalized and scalable data protection enables a company to adapt quickly to industry-specific security trends.
2. Developing inbound and outbound workflows
Your business needs an integrated workflow system that includes printer media, mobile document imaging software, and mobile printer. This solution increases the efficiency of your employees through a number of ways:
- Using the mobile computer to compile receipt data in real time improves productivity and accuracy for paper-based procedures. Additionally, you get to see your inventory in real-time
- Mobile document imaging software captures and stores paperwork electronically for immediate visibility especially for critical data
- Mobile printer eliminates saves time because an employee won’t need to travel back and forth to a stationary printer
In essence, inbound workflow solutions allow employees to tackle more receipts at a go, prevent costly errors of data entry, maximize efficiency, and improve customer service.
Like the inbound solutions, outbound workflows are critical to keeping the flow of materials moving. They speed up shipments and customer services. Through managed service providers, you can cut the replacement costs and save on shipping workflow.
3. Integrating on-premise directories with Azure AD
When Azure Active Directory is linked to your on-premise directories, your users can finally get a common identity in Office 365 and other applications connected to Azure AD. This free feature doesn’t need paid subscriptions from your users. Instead, they become more productive since they get a common identity to access on-premise and cloud data. Moreover, it offers a straightforward deployment for signing in and synchronization. And if you want to replace older identity integration system, a managed service provider can assist you with the modern capabilities that suit your needs.
Note that Microsoft does not facilitate the modification and operation of Azure AD Connect outside the formally documented actions. Any unauthorized action can lead to inconsistency in the Azure AD Connect and no support is available to rectify such errors from Microsoft.
4. Implementing retention policy and litigation hold
Microsoft Office 365 and Exchange provide native approaches to protecting critical data. The Exchange Security and Compliance Center have implemented a lot of changes lately. For extra layers of data protection, retention policies and litigation hold go a long way. The two aspects seem to serve the same purpose but they have major differences. Retention policies work by deleting unnecessary data and protecting vital data from deletion. They can be integrated into the entire organization or simply to a category of users. Permission is needed to manage or create retention policies.
On the other side, putting mailboxes and public files on litigation hold protects permanent deletion of chosen information. In the past, litigation hold only provided security to whole mailboxes. But today, through filters and conditions, you can choose what items to secure and which not to. Therefore, in case of a lawsuit, your data will be protected especially emails that might be the evidence.
5. The real-time response to Microsoft environment and its tools
An MSP can manage your company’s relationship with Microsoft so that clients don’t need to wait too long for responses. The support system of third-party providers is the best way to reach Microsoft directly. An integration-driven cooperation facilitates data conveyance between systems while bringing the right stakeholders to solve any issues proactively.
It is easier to tie together the SCOM, OMS, and Azure at a service level through third-party migration and obtain a birds-eye view of the whole hybrid infrastructure. Any time you receive alerts, the MSP offers great incident management workflow whereby you are notified through custom notification guidelines. You also get to view the embedded real-time monitoring by the third-party including runbook and iframes information.
6. Email encryption in Office 365
Encryption refers to the encoding of information such that only authorized recipients can decode it. Office 365 applies encryption in two ways namely as a consumer control and in the service. Depending on your needs, an MSP can implement different encryption options including Office Message Encryption, Transport Layer Security, and Information Right Management. Multiple encryptions can be delivered to your Microsoft 365 Email to meet your security needs.
With this system in place, your company can receive and send encrypted emails to the employees as well as the outsiders and only the intended recipient can view the message content. Good news is that email message encryption works with just any email service provider like Yahoo!, Gmail, Outlook, etc.
The best time to reach out to an Office 365 MSP is now, regardless of your deployment stage. You need a trusted advisor to help you do get Office 365 Email right. It doesn’t matter if you have started the migration already, you can still as for expert assistance if you come across challenges.
