Mergers and Acquisitions with Microsoft 365 and Azure
Transforming and growing your business with requires experts in Identity, Licensing, Migrations, and Communication to realize your business objectives
REALIZING YOUR VISION AND POTENTIAL
Organizations going through a merger or acquisition have done so to increase overall business capability with the combined organization. To achieve the desired outcome of the M&A, there are technical challenges to achieve the desired goals.
- Identity rationalization and consolidation
- Microsoft licensing rationalization and optimization
- Mobile device management
- Windows 10/11 transition and management
- Email consolidation and migration
- File migrations to SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive
- Application migration and modernization
- Cybersecurity and Compliance
PLANNING
Understand your identity and data landscapes
LICENSING OPTIMIZATION
Don’t over spend on licensing while consolidating your vendors
MODERNIZE WHILE MIGRATING
Utilize the migration path to also modernize your IT environment
PROPEL PRODUCTIVITY, SECURITY, AND COMPLIANCE
Create an immediate jump in productivity, while also reducing risk with Cybersecurity and Compliance enforcement
Mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures can be a stressful time for all involved. As organizations face major changes across the business, IT must face new challenges involving endpoints, servers, infrastructure, applications, identity, and security issues.
- Consolidating user identity
- Support public branding (typically Email addresses)
- Unified Global Address Lists
- Reduce IT complexity and environments
- Application access and management
- Licensing consolidation
- Security and compliance alignment
- Server inventory and transitions
MICROSOFT 365 TENANT AND ON-PREMISES
Organizations that are going through or planning for a M&A activity can include a variety of source locations. This includes one or more organizations having a production Microsoft 365 or require moving towards a new tenant type such as Microsoft GCC High to meet government compliance (e.g., Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC)). To make matters worse, there can be a mixture of other sources that must be taken into account per organization as listed below.
- Microsoft 365 GCC Moderate
- Microsoft 365 GCC High
- Okta, Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), Ping Federate, etc.
- Windows Local Active Directory
- Exchange Online
- Exchange Server
- Hosted Exchange
- Non-Microsoft Exchange Online (e.g., GoDaddy, US Internetworking)
- SharePoint Online
- SharePoint Server
Organizations always have file types that are standard business files (Microsoft Office files like Word, Excel, etc., and Adobe PDF), media content (e.g., images, videos), and more. These files can be stored on traditional Windows File Servers, Network Attached Storage (NAS), Storage Area Networks (SAN), and Cloud Storage services (e.g., DropBox, Box, AWS, SharePoint Online). During an M&A, there is often a priority of what files need to prioritized for access and collaboration (E.g., sales, marketing, product development).
- User Files (going to OneDrive)
- Departmental Files (going to SharePoint Online)
- Departmental Files (going to Microsoft Teams)
- Modernization of SharePoint Sites
- Digital Rights Management
- eDiscovery and Retention Policies
Bring together IT environments is not just a technical activity, but also a social and operational change. Both IT teams and users within each organization have a defined (sometimes tribal) process and culture in IT practices and usage.
- Resolving identity duplications
- Supporting legacy and new email addresses
- Combined local Windows Active Directories
- Group assessment and consolidation
- Onboarding/Offboarding user devices
- End-user preparation and communication
- Change Management
- Resolving technical debt
