Commercial Integrator April 2021 - 13

THE SERVICE DESK

How to Maximize Microsoft 365 Investment
Microsoft 365 continues to grow in the enterprise sector, and integrators that outfit customers with
this technology can help them realize far reaching return on investment. by Dawn R. Sizer
use in their organization they will find they
can be completely mobile using phones,
tablets and laptops.

Security
WE ALL KNOW WORD, Excel, Power Point,
and Outlook. They have been the core of
Microsoft's Office platform for as long as
most of us can remember. As Microsoft has
shifted to a subscription-based product
with Microsoft 365, their product offering
has expanded significantly.
The key to maximizing your investment
is understanding what you are buying and
what the product can actually do. Being a
partner who can help customers through the
process is an integral part of this investment.

Become a Partner
You will want to become a Microsoft partner at the Silver level or above. Partners are
required to have a competency with Microsoft products at those levels. They are also
able to open support issues with Microsoft
directly, should there ever be an issue.
Partners should have certifications for
specific products or have technical trainers
on staff to help manage the employee
experience. That experience will help with
adoption and help realize return on investment at an increased rate.

Understand the Subscription/License
Microsoft subscriptions are extremely
varied. Depending on business type customers could qualify for non-profit or free
licenses to government licenses or anything
in between. Be sure to investigate these
options if you think customers might qualify
as getting started with the correct Microsoft
365 account, or tenancy, is important since
it is not generally easy or cost effective to
change later.
You will want to be sure it is done correctly from the start to avoid over-paying
or having data that needs special consideration stored where it does not receive it.
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Define your Goals
You should take a moment to consider what
goals the customer wants to achieve with
Microsoft 365. They may be as simple as
moving data to the cloud to create a more
mobile staff. Many are significantly more
involved and include outside vendors,
metrics of increased productivity, and consolidation of applications for cost savings. A
good partner can help with shaping goals,
and make sure customers are able to do
them safely, securely, and without data loss.
Do not forget to include a backup plan for
data in these goals.
Adoption and Change Management
As an integrator, your tone and attitude
towards adoption of the 365 project will
drive its success. Customer owners, managers, and leaders will need to champion
the project and be a part of training as well
as using the products for others to do the
same. You can help facilitate that.
There will also need to be an understanding that for most, there is a real paradigm shift
in thinking from the old on prem Office to the
cloud versions. That shift needs to be managed over time through training to let the
staff become accustomed to the new 365
and introduce them to new components.

Leveraging OneDrive & SharePoint
When the organization has adopted Teams,
they are ready to begin to leverage OneDrive and SharePoint. Data can be syncing
to the cloud in the background as you are
ramping up to cut over to cloud use. Teams
will introduce the idea of file storage in the
Teams channels.
The users will adopt the ideas of file
sharing and the security around it, as well as
the different ways they can now access their
data. Depending on the devices customers

365 gives some security and compliance
features built into subscription. Requiring
the use of MFA paired with the Microsoft
authenticator app helps to keep accounts
from being breached. Exchange Online
Threat Protection cuts down on spam,
malware and known email threats.
Rounding out the built-in controls are
standardized security and privacy controls, customizable security groups and
permission as well as password policies for
the users.
Additional security controls are available
in some licenses. They help to control more
sophisticated threats, including zero-day
threats in email and for the PC. Policies can
be established on how company data can
be copied or moved and to what application, email archiving and mobile device
management with InTune.

Mobile Device Management
Some licenses come with Microsoft's
InTune. InTune gives you management of
phones and tablets running iOS or Android.
This allows you to remotely wipe, configure and deploy applications to any device
enrolled in the platform. It also ensures the
devices are kept up to date, so they don't
become a security nightmare.
As organization adopt Microsoft 365,
users will begin to identify areas of business
that can be improved with the applications
and integrations. Integrators can help strategize to pick the right applications to use
and formalize the process by training staff
on some of the lesser-known applications,
or applications that aren't user intuitive.
Dawn R. Sizer is the CEO of
3rd Element Consulting, Inc.
She has been a member of The
ASCII Group Since 2018.
APRIL 2021

Commercial Integrator

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Commercial Integrator April 2021

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