Microsoft 365 support and migration

Almost every small business we look at is running Microsoft 365, and almost none of them are running it the way it was meant to be run. That is not a criticism. It was set up years ago by whoever was available, it works well enough day to day, and nobody has had a reason to open the admin centre since.

The gap between "it works" and "it is set up properly" is where the money and the risk both sit.

What we usually find

• Licences nobody is using. People who left, duplicates, and users on a more expensive plan than their job needs. This is the single most common saving available, and it is often several hundred dollars a month.
• Multi-factor on most accounts. Most, not all. The exception is usually an owner or a shared mailbox, and one exception is what fails an insurance application.
• No backup. Microsoft replicates your data. It does not keep a copy safe from you. Deleted mail and files leave the recycle bin on a schedule, and there is no protection against somebody encrypting or deleting the lot. The retention windows, and the gaps they leave, are in Microsoft 365 is not a backup.
• Admin rights spread around. Former staff, a consultant from a project two years ago, and accounts nobody can identify.
• Email authentication half configured. SPF set, DKIM missing, DMARC on monitoring only, which means it is watching impersonation rather than stopping it.
• Offboarding by memory. No written procedure, so accounts stay live for months after somebody leaves.

What we do about it

Microsoft 365 administration is included in every plan rather than sold as a project.

• Tenant reviewed and secured: multi-factor enforced, conditional access set sensibly, admin rights trimmed to who actually needs them
• Licensing matched to real headcount and real job needs, with the saving handed back to you rather than kept
• Email authentication configured properly, and DMARC moved past monitoring into a policy that rejects
• Third party backup for mail, files and SharePoint, tested rather than assumed
• Devices enrolled, encrypted and patched through Intune
• Written onboarding and offboarding so accounts appear and disappear on time
• The whole environment documented, and the documentation is yours

Migrations

Moving from Google Workspace, from an old on-premises Exchange server, or from a tenant somebody else set up badly. Mail, files, calendars and permissions, with a cutover planned around your week rather than ours.

The honest note: migration is disruptive and it is not always worth it. If you are on Google Workspace and it is working, the most common correct answer is to stay. We wrote the comparison as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace for a BC small business, including the cases where switching is a waste of money.

What it costs

Microsoft 365 administration is part of the managed plan, not an add-on. From $125 per user per month, $199 flat for a one-person business, month to month with no exit fee. Licences are billed by Microsoft at their price, not marked up.

Full detail on the pricing section, and the market context in what managed IT costs in Metro Vancouver.

Where we stop

We are not Microsoft licensing resellers chasing volume, and we do not build custom SharePoint applications. Complex Power Platform development and enterprise-scale Azure architecture go to specialists. We handle the tenant, the identity, the security, the backup and the devices, which is what a business under twenty five people actually needs.

Start with the insurance-readiness review

Half an hour on a screen share. We look at your tenant, your licences, your admin list and your backup position, and you get a one-page summary. Most businesses find at least one licence they are paying for and nobody is using.

Request a readiness review

Related

• IT support for small businessThe whole service, and what it costs.
• Security and insurabilityThe controls your insurer asks about.
• Free templatesOffboarding, admin access review, restore test.