One of the most compelling reasons to switch from an on-premises messaging solution to a cloud based solution is to switch from Capital Expenditures to Operational Expenditures. The ability to budget out the entire company’s emailing cost on a yearly basis is very desirable to many organizations, however many often forget about how they get there.
As any IT professional who has migrated email systems in the past knows, a lot of work is needed in order to transition the systems from one environment to another. For most organizations, the cost of having an employee learn how to migrate the existing system over to Office 365 exceeds the cost of having an experienced Microsoft partner complete it. Companies fail to realize all of the costs associated with having their IT resources spending time learning how to accomplish a task they will only do once, instead of having them concentrating on other business critical applications and needs. On top of that, in the event that the migration wasn’t completed properly, the business disruption of not having email available for an extended period of time can cost a company ten times as much as having a partner complete it for them.
In order to reduce the costs organizations face with bringing in a partner to migrate the messaging platform, Microsoft offers deployment and training vouchers to compensate the partners. Depending on the size of the organization and incentive they are offering, Microsoft has been known to front deployment dollars in the thousands to move to Office 365.
If you are interested in learning a bit more about Office 365, please send an email to info@pei.com or give us a call 303-786-7474.
Martin Feehan, PEI
