Business Communication from the Cloud:
What companies have to consider when migrating to Microsoft 365
1. Optimize spam and virus protection
Comprehensive spam and virus protection is especially important for the exchange of sensitive data via email. That’s why companies using cloud-based email solutions should check in detail whether the standard security features included are sufficient to actually meet their requirements, or if they need to be enhanced with additional functions. Supplementary email security solutions from the cloud, for instance, offer greater protection by combining several virus scanners as well as using intelligent spam and phishing filters.
2. Proper implementation of security and compliance requirements
Many businesses which use Microsoft 365 do not perceive their security and compliance requirements as being completely fulfilled. As a result, according to Gartner, around 40% of companies using Microsoft 365 will be using supplementary third party solutions by 2018. Special gateway-based email security services, for example, combine email encryption and archiving seamlessly with each other. The decryption of the email does not take place on the user’s client in such cases, but centrally via the email security solution. The email is subsequently placed in the archive where it is encrypted once again. In this way, the archived information is still readable even after ten years without requiring the respective private key.
3. Power to the user
The more heterogeneous the requirements of employees are, the more important it becomes for users to have control over their own business communication. Email security solutions from the cloud supplement Microsoft 365 not only by offering additional email security, but also numerous email management functions. These allow users to be granted the freedom, for instance within the scope of quarantine management, to undertake many settings on their own. Users receive an email which provides an overview of all emails which have been filtered out. In case a relevant newsletter, for instance, is erroneously blocked, users have the power to administrate their own individual black lists and white lists.
4. Migration tasks and efforts
When changing over to office 365, it is necessary to plan a great many tasks. This includes, for instance, temporarily running a hybrid system during the transition, archiving the entire email correspondence, recoding existing email formats, as well as migrating calendar entries and special applications such as room booking and vacation replacement systems. In order to cut down on the amount of effort required, companies should rely on service providers which are specialized in cloud-based communication solutions. These expert providers not only offer innovative storage options for archiving old data and special solutions such as user-based routing for hybrid operations, but also assist businesses with their know-how throughout the migration process.
5. Support for fax
With Exchange Online and Skype for Business (previously Lync), Microsoft already offers a wide range of communication solutions for email, telephone, audio and video conferencing, as well as instant messaging. Fax functionality, by contrast, is not provided by Microsoft itself. With the aid of cloud fax services, companies can ensure dependable fax communication – also within IP environments. These services ensure reliable reception of faxes, even if – as with Skype for Business – support for fax is not offered via the SIP trunk.
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