Microsoft has made its best efforts in engaging up to 80% of Fortune 500 companies by helping them embrace the Microsoft Cloud in some form. Here comes a flabbergasting fact – there have been more than 9.2 million downloads of Office Pro just to get started. https://www.netsmartz.com/migrating-to-office-365

1. Migrating to Office 365

2. Time for a reality check! Can organizations imagine using applications and
technology infrastructure components without the cloud in todays fast pace
world? Well, it’s very unlikely. The cloud-based services have become so
prevalent for organizations because it has enabled them to increase their
business flexibility. Indeed, it’s the cloud that has brought efficiency in the
workplace, thus allowing them to reduce their capital cost.
The Big Picture
Statistically, it is considered that the global cloud market is worth $95.8
billion. With growth in 2015 being projected at 23.2 %, many organizations
have made up their mind to make the move to a cloud strategy. No more
struggles with storage or communication barriers in the office or dealing with
data storage facility, and the convenience of sharing content across all the
platforms is incomparable.
Microsoft has made its best efforts in engaging up to 80% of Fortune 500
companies by helping them embrace the Microsoft Cloud in some form. Here
comes a flabbergasting fact – there have been more than 9.2 million
downloads of Office Pro just to get started.
The Need for Office 365
Prior to expeditiously planning a strategy with “Cloud” or “Office 365”, you
must determine why you are making this move. Is your decision solely based
on your organization’s needs? It is crucial to acknowledge each of the pains
of your organization prior to planning any migration strategy.
Who doesn’t look for cost reduction within an organization? If you ever
come across a technology that provides you with cost effective features as
one of its main assets, of course, you shouldn’t give it a second thought.

3. Besides the key benefit of cost reduction for moving to Office 365, there are
other business aspects that give you much better reasons to migrate.
Looking for something to enhance your business activity?
An organization must deal with certain issues, including mergers,
acquisitions or opening new offices. Are you afraid of moving to new
territories? With Office 365, there are no worries as it comes with the ability
to scale up the number of licenses that you need for the productivity and
communication.
Set the stage for high productivity
Do you wait for the employees to get back to the office? It is a headache
when you are dealing with some pending work and you must wait. Office 365
offers you a flexible working environment where you can accomplish the task
at the point of need anywhere.
Worried about the expenses for migrating a project?
Indeed, expensive migration projects have become quite prominent in the
Microsoft ecosystem. However, Office 365 has emerged out with new
features, capabilities and it is available at fixed subscription rates. This grants
more certainty over all related costs.
A step ahead towards better communication
Office 365 allows creating common communication processes and working
approaches to support all employees. With the emergence of new tools, such
as Delve and Yammer, you can expect a new way of cultivating a culture of
collaboration.

4. Time for efficient IT operation
Managing the layers of technical requirements and potential points of failure
is a struggle for many companies. You may even end up with a cascading set
of errors with the incompatibilities between the servers. Migrating to Office
365 will allow the smooth running of the IT operations and even allows you
to outsource the responsibility to a third party.
Go for the traditional migration and management route
Migrating to the private or public cloud is the traditional migration and
management route. However, it is suggested that content be reviewed prior to
any migration, as it is uncertain that whether the data is cloud ready or needs
any migration. If you are planning to migrate simplistic services such as
Exchange or Lync, you can expect a very straightforward path to Office 365.
The migration complexity increases with the complex applications such as
Share Point and Project Server.
Need for proper management of Office 365
Although cloud technology contribution in overcoming barriers such as cost,
scale and business activity is quite appreciable, you can still end up with a
failed deployment if there are any fundamental flaws in informative
governance and administration.
Pre-Migration – Strategy and Planning
Prior to migration, determine that how much of the content and applications
actually needs to be migrated. Discovery and planning should be your utmost

5. priority. You need an internal migration team for the entirety of the project to
help set up a perfect strategy with controlled planning.
Business Alignment and Creation Implantation Team
When introducing a new IT system, you need someone to engage with the
business stakeholders to provide them with detailed understanding of the
strategies needed for Office 365.
Project Planning & Implementation Mapping Technology
You need a document for the appropriate diligence from your organization so
that you can accomplish migration process conveniently. This document
provides you with an overview and a sample framework.
Migration software
Increase the capability of the migration team, create consistency, provide
visibility, record progress and mid-migration restructuring with migration
software.
Independent software vendor solutions
This can provide you with certain benefits, including a simplified process,
reduced training needs, reduced time and effort, and reduced chances of
failed migrations.
General approaches to embracing Office 365
Are you worried about rebuilding from the ground up? Well, that’s
impractical as you probably have existing content used regularly. Here is a
quick glance at two approaches:

6. Office 365 hybrid
As the name suggests, migrate some or most of the capabilities to Office 365,
but retain some on-premises, such as the older content not worth migrating to
Office 365 for the rare reference or research.
Full migration to Office 365
Migrate all the capabilities to Office 365 and retain nothing on-premises.
This allows a company to migrate all data into Office 365 that can be moved
and recreated in the system.
Migrate other content into the appropriate destination in
Office 365
Migration to Office 365 involves major activities and provides you with an
opportunity to think about various ways through which a company uses file
shares, SharePoint and Lync. It is mandatory to migrate the existing content
to the appropriate place in Office 365.
Migrating My Document to OneDrive
It is important to shift all the documents and files in My Documents to
OneDrive for business. OneDrive allows corporate provisioned file sync and
sharing of files with other people. The individuals can have an access and
work from various devices.
Migrating other content from My Document to SharePoint
Online
Some team or project related content stored in My Document demands
shifting to a document library in a site in SharePoint Online.

7. Identify compliance, security, archiving and e-Discovery
requirements
While planning migration to Office 365, you need to evaluate its benefits to
fit into your business and legal requirements for email security, compliance
and e-discovery:
Email security
Office 365 provides you with the solutions that focus on eliminating the
advanced threats.
Compliance requirements
The organization needs compliance capabilities if it needs guaranteed data
retention or granular policies.
Archiving requirements
It allows the organizations to continue using proven archiving tools and
approaches, even after migrating to Office 365.
E-Discovery requirements
Organizations need to be able to search and discover emails and other
electronically stored data and Office 365 includes some E-Discovery
capabilities, although they are limited.
Best practices to manage the migration process
Once the organization is done with its pre-migration activities as well as
planning for moving to Office 365, it’s time to execute the plan. There are
some best practices that can assist you in migrating:

8. Look for any exchange misconfiguration
Migrating to Exchange Online can put many hidden problems on display.
You need to deal with stability, mailbox corruption or any misconfiguration
problem associated with Exchange that can arise during migration.
Prefer an advanced E-Mail Security
Prior to routing to Office 365 email security services, it is crucial to screen
the emails for advanced threats that include polymorphic malware, malicious
URLs and malicious attachments.
Ensure advanced security for file sharing
The organizations need to make use of advanced security controls that are
integrated with the SharePoint Online and OneDrive to search and prevent
the spread of advanced threats.
Migrating to Office 365 is not so difficult; however, you would need
assistance to understand integrating the right modules to the required needs
and as per your core business objectives. Moreover, waiting more to choose
Office 365 will only result in the loss of productivity. Thus, it’s high time
you grab our hands and let us help you afloat and stay on top. Why wait?
Talk to us now.