As a technology consultant and solutions architect with a focus on M365 licensing improvement, I’ve leveraged my extensive experience with Microsoft 365 (M365) to assist businesses of all sizes in maximizing its benefits. This powerful suite of cloud-based productivity tools, encompassing traditional applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, along with online services such as Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, offers significant value, as I’ve highlighted in earlier articles.
There are various subscription tiers available, each with its own set of features and pricing. Let’s have a look at the subscription structure:
M365 Business Basic:
Includes web and mobile versions of the Office applications, as well as Exchange Online email and calendaring, SharePoint Online Plan 1, Teams, and OneDrive for Business Plan 1. It excludes desktop versions of Office applications.
M365 Business Standard:
Everything available in Business Basic and desktop versions of Office applications.
M365 Business Premium:
Provides everything available in Business Standard as well as extra security and management capabilities such as Intune and Azure Information Protection. The addition of Shared Activation Office applications, which allows organisations to take advantage of remote desktop services, is an important component of this offer. Other Windows-related capabilities include Application Control, Azure AD join for devices (eliminating the need for a local Active Directory Server), Defender antivirus, and Universal Print, among others.
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Keep in mind that, although this is likely the most cost-effective subscription, it is limited to 300 seats per tenant. Perfect for small and medium-sized businesses.
M365 Enterprise:
Designed for larger organisations, this SKU contains all of the features of Business Premium and more advanced security and compliance features such as Advanced Threat Protection and Microsoft Cloud App Security.
M365 Enterprise is available in two flavours: E3 and E5. Some of the most significant differences revolve around security and compliance. There are also E3 add-ons that cover parts of the E5 offer.
With over 200 distinct services to choose from, how can businesses determine which one is the best fit for their needs? Let’s start with a quick graphic representation and then go on to a few cases. This listing is far from comprehensive, and it only includes some of the most often requested services and features.
Case No. 1: Highly Regulated Company in the Energy Distribution Sector
Our first business case involves a medium-sized, heavily regulated enterprise. After we were contacted for our M365 licensing improvement, we found that this organisation adopted M365 E5 and Exchange Online plan 1 across their almost 400 employees given their substantial focus on regulations and compliance.
As with most medium-sized businesses, there are various teams and departments with varying needs, such as marketing, sales, and finance. To meet these requirements, the company adopted Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium for the marketing department, Microsoft Office 365 Business Basic for the sales department mobile force, and Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise E3 for the finance department. The legal department, IT department, HR department, and C-Level all received E5, which included security, governance, and access control. Their delivery personnel kept using the Exchange Online service until the IT upgraded them to M365 Business Basic, giving them access to Teams, SharePoint, and Power Automate.
Let’s take a look at their cost savings:
This mixed SKU approach has enabled the organisation to optimise costs and minimise monthly expenditure by around 4,000€, while also guaranteeing that each department gets the tools necessary to be productive and effective. The marketing team can more quickly collaborate on projects and share documents, while the sales and distribution teams will remain connected while on the go and gain access to advanced automation based on business logic. The finance staff can securely and compliantly access and manage sensitive financial data.
Case No. 2: Shipping Company
The second business case involves a shipping company that required M365 licensing improvement. They utilised M365 Business Basics in all departments and Office 2019 Professional licences for the apps. After reviewing their requirements, we discovered that the organization used a third-party messaging service for communication. They only utilized SharePoint for limited file sharing, and did not use OneDrive. The organization limited end-device security to a third-party antivirus without a central administration interface. They had no policies or concerns for data retention or security, as most file sharing and collaboration took place on-premises. The COVID pandemic drove half of the workforce (office employees) to work from home, completely transforming their requirements.
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Quickly, the use of several groups on unregulated third-party applications proved unsustainable, both for managing employee notifications and follow-ups and for the increased risk of sharing or losing company data. To support remote work, the team removed devices from the premises and lacked a centralized platform to manage security and compliance. Restricted bandwidth required migrating access to two business-critical systems hosted on-premises to the cloud, using two remote desktop Windows servers with the appropriate licensing for users.
- M365 Business Basic was kept for the warehouse staff and drivers, who primarily use web and mobile versions of the Office products, as well as email and calendaring through Exchange Online.
- M365 Business Premium was purchased for the logistics, accounting, and human resources teams, while M365 E3 was provided for upper management.
- M365 Enterprise E5 was deployed for IT and security teams in need of advanced security and compliance tools to safeguard the company’s data and systems.
With this licencing approach, an Azure Virtual Desktop deployment was established to allow access to the Clouded servers without the need for Remote Desktop licencing.
Let’s review some of the cost changes
This mixed SKU approach allowed the company to quickly migrate their office employees to a remote workforce, while also ensuring that each team has the tools they need to be productive and efficient. Without barely an increase in monthly costs, the needs for security and central management were fulfilled. The warehouse team remained connected with their devices on-premises, whilst drivers remained with their mobile versions. The IT and security teams can detect and respond to threats across the company’s email, documents, and identities while protecting sensitive data from unauthorized access. This approach securely provided all office workers with access to the cloud servers using a fully managed, familiar Windows 10 remote desktop, avoiding extra infrastructure costs (not including server cloud costs in the comparison). The IT team removed all third-party sharing applications and communications, migrating them to SharePoint and Teams.
Conclusion:
As we have seen, deploying mixed M365 licences can be an effective option for organisations aiming to address the particular demands of various teams and departments while also optimising expenses. It is critical to understand each department’s unique needs in order to develop an M365 licensing improvement strategy that meets all of them without incurring needless fees.
