Business operations today rely on widely used Microsoft applications such as Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. The software is simple and powerful enough for your company needs, but it can go much further when you migrate to Office 365 for expanded cloud capabilities. When your company makes the switch, support for Office 365 is critical for small and medium-sized businesses. 
What is Office 365
Office 365 is Microsoft’s cloud application that provides users with proven Office products as well as increased flexibility, cloud security, and storage.
Many users are familiar with Office 2016, but Office 365 adds more business-friendly and collaboration functions plus technical support. When your company migrates to Office 365, you gain access to additional features in the cloud that can make you and your team more productive and responsive.
Features of Office 365 for businesses
Features of Office 365 for businessesBusinesses are attracted to Office 365 to make daily operations more efficient and data more secure, among several other benefits. Office 365 addresses your changing business needs with a comprehensive menu of standard and optional features and capabilities for working smarter, including:
- Mobile apps for Android, Apple and Windows devices
- PC and Mac compatibility
- Cloud services for remote collaboration
- Familiar Office products
- Skype for Business integration
- Unified communication features
- SharePoint and Outlook compatibility
The innovative pricing model available with Office 365 ensures that you choose and pay only for what you need, and how much you pay depends on your business.
Benefits of Migrating to Office 365
Businesses that migrate to Office 365 benefit from the best that cloud technology has to offer for growing, fast-paced businesses like yours, including:
- Scalable technology
- On-site integration
- Adaptability with multi-platform use
- Single sign-on (SSO) to the secure cloud
- Remote access to Office products and communication systems
- Multi-step authentication
- Data protection
- Collaboration and workflow management
- Server optimization
Getting Office 365 Support for Your Business
Businesses migrating to Office 365 can face many pitfalls and costly wrinkles if they choose to migrate without support. Even choosing a subscription plan can be a difficult decision when making the move to this new platform for working in the cloud.
What to choose, how much to pay, how to install, and what to carry over are a handful of the important questions that deserve careful consideration and even expert insight.
Moving your team to the cloud to work can be the best decision you’ve ever made. But it’s easy to underestimate the challenges for your network, your data, and your processes if you don’t have the experience or the resources to prepare and execute a smooth and strategic migration.
Avoid Common Challenges of Self-migration to Office 365
Early migration issues and complications can arise when your business is unprepared, inexperienced or unsupported during the migration process.
Complicated server-to-cloud designs
Whether you have one server or 10, you will be tasked with figuring out the correct number of servers to maintain in-house along with how much data to move to the cloud. Hybrid models can be challenging to organize and coordinate effectively. The process demands considering the timing and next steps for transition from hybrid design to full cloud migration, a step often left out of the process when businesses migrate to Office 365 without support.
Derailed data migration
The point of going to the cloud is to keep data secure, to store data efficiently, and to better manage data access. It’s all about the data, because your business relies on data to operate every day and protecting it is sometimes even a matter of compliance. This is exactly why it is risky for a growing business to self-manage your migration to Office 365. Complications during data migration can arise from legacy applications, not to mention miscalculating how much data you have and when to schedule transfers. With so many variables, your data migration could stall or fail despite your best efforts.
Mailbox errors
Migrating several mailboxes can cause a great deal of confusion. It gets worse when you lose inboxes, can’t recover emails, or run into errors that cease mail delivery completely. What is the next step? With Office 365 support, you can prepare your mailboxes for migration so you don’t run into these errors.
Mix-ups with legacy application archives and software
One of the biggest IT troubles companies face is maintenance, support, and access to legacy applications and software. Unfortunately, businesses find out too late in the migration process that their legacy solutions are either incompatible with migration to Office 365 or that the network speed is insufficient. The resulting downtime and frustration can jeopardize the entire migration process.
Migration doesn’t occur overnight
A major pitfall in migrating to Office 365 can happen in assuming the migration is as simple as uploading content into the cloud. Migration takes extensive planning, a thorough content strategy, and stages of implementation. The network must be taken down at specific times to perform the migration but on a schedule that does not impede or stop business operations. An IT analyst can assist you with evaluating your environment and your business needs to determine an Office 365 migration schedule that still meets operational and customer demands and reduces downtime.
Informal employee training
No migration is complete without training your entire team. When you decide to migrate to Office 365, a formal approach to workforce training is essential for maximizing product acceptance, appropriate use and the security of your company and customers. Users must get to know the interface and adopt new security habits. An Office 365 migration specialist can assist with workforce development and security training to speed productivity and ensure successful rollout. 
Office 365 Migration Support with Axxys
Effective Office 365 migration services should offer small and medium-sized businesses full-circle support with guidance throughout the transition.
Migrations services specialists at Axxys take the time to understand your business so that your company’s needs are driving the migration, not ours. Migration begins the moment your company decides to move to the cloud. But support shouldn’t end once your company has paid for the service and purchased the plan. Migration services for Office 365 must lead to successful rollout.
When our Office 365 migration services analyst takes the time to provide your company with a plan for migration, the analyst, and their team will be ready to support it as well. Axxys is ready to assist you with all phases of your Office 365 migration. Call now to get started.
