Mergers and acquisitions are a massive drain on your IT resources, what with Office 365 tenant migrations, the merging of multiple Active Directories, understanding and setting relevant administration rights, understanding how to structure your SharePoint data and much more. The biggest challenge you face is realizing synergies and planning how to take these forward successfully, whilst protecting your most sensitive data. 

We have all heard the horror stories about migrations exposing secret data companywide, how do you manage the movement of your data during a M&A, in a way where you can be assured that your data is safe, and the correct users have access to the correct documents? 

There is no such thing as let’s just migrate the data. Now is the perfect time to understand what data you hold, in what regions, identify any gaps in your processes and systems and create new strategies to move your organisation forward. 

When it comes to mergers and acquisitions the migration from cloud office to cloud office is called ‘tenant to tenant’ and referred to as T2T, there are considerations unique to T2T migrations that must be fully planned. 

Current Environment 

Understand what your current Office 365 environment looks like before you start moving any data, have a full picture of what the current state of both environments is like. This includes: 

– Who the users are and the permissions and settings they have 

– What mailbox specifications there are for users 

– Groups, including what users are in which group 

– The applications that are currently in use, understand which are due for updating and how users and groups use these 

– All data entities, understand where they are stored, whether they are used in applications (if so which ones), how frequently they are used and the size of this data 

– How these data entities are backed up and where this happens 

Future Environment 

Now imagine what you want your future environment to look like, take into consideration the needs of your organisation and any future plans.

Migrations provide an opportunity to look at larger IT and application changes and create new processes. This is a great time to look at adjusting governance policies so take your time planning how you want new processes to work in your new destination. 

We all know that over time we accumulate files that are now obsolete, have old emails or keep hold of data for longer than needed. This is the perfect opportunity to understand your data and have a tidy up, decide what not to migrate over. There will of course be long-term records you must keep due to compliance, use this opportunity to go through archives and understand what is here. 

By cleansing your data you will be reducing the size of the data transfer, this will help reduce risks during the migration and make your future environment much cleaner and easier to use.

Domain Name 

Will you be keeping your existing domain name or changing it? In relation to mergers and acquisitions the Board needs to make the decision whether they will use an existing domain name to continue to use, and if so which one, or will the merged businesses operate under a new brand and need a new domain name. 

Select Your Solution        

Once you have completed your pre-migration assessment and have identified the strategy you are going to follow you need to decide what you are going to use to help you execute the project. This is where Casper365 can help, the only cloud platform that supports all the complex requirements of your migration. When researching other third-party solutions you need you need to consider these elements. 

Setup and config 

Does your internal team have the right skills to set up the configuration of your migration project or do you need to look at outsourcing this and getting additional support? Once you have decided on this you need to understand how long this will take. 

Data transfer speeds 

The speed at which your data transfers depends on how many users you have and the size of data you are migrating. Casper365’s platform is high speed so completes your migrations faster allowing you to maintain business continuity.  

Testing 

You may want to test the migration with made up users to check that your scripts work, this step isn’t needed if you are using Casper365 as the cloud platform does all of this for you. 

Sensitivity Labels   

Sensitivity labels are an important part of your migration, the power to add these sensitivity policies during your migration ensures that any confidential data stays that way. Casper365’s cloud platform will manage your migration from start to finish and is unique in its ability to apply these sensitivity labels during migrations.  

Security  

Consider where your end users data is being stored and if data is encrypted while in transit. With Casper365 all your data is stored on your tenancy and nothing is stored on the platform giving you piece of mind that your files are secure. If you are using your own temporary storage, we can encrypt this data to keep it safe from prying eyes.  

Support 

To ensure a successful migration it is important that your team have the skills set to perform the actual data transfer and know what to do if something breaks during the migration. If you feel like you need some extra support we are happy to help, whether this be with our Casper365 platform or using our Business Cloud Integration consultancy service. We understand SharePoint inside out, your migration will be in safe hands, fully backed by a team of SharePoint certified experts, using their years of experience to guide you through and make your migration simple, quick and painless. 

Involve end users in planning 

Modern organisations are embracing that SharePoint is a business tool and understand to get the most out of its ownership this belongs to the whole business, not just IT. It is important to involve end users in the planning as they will be using these tools going forward and to ensure that they are educated as to what is happening. A communication plan will help end users understanding downtime and outlining what actions they need to take, when. This is also a great time to consider training for users, this will talk them through the changes and how to use the tools going forward. 

Casper365 is the platform that gives Business Cloud Integration the edge when it comes to migrations. Our unique cloud-based platform provides friction free migrations from any data source into SharePoint Online, utilising the power of Microsoft Azure this platform will accelerate your migration from start to finish. 

If you are looking to migrate your data properly the first time, then Casper365 is the perfect companion for your M&A. If you would like to chat through your requirements in more detail than get in contact for a free, no obligation chat with one of our friendly team.