Microsoft 365 for businesses: A complete deployment guide

Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) is today the most widely used suite of business tools in the world. Email, Word, Excel, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, all in one package for a monthly fee. However, selecting the right plan and deploying it so that it genuinely benefits the company is not entirely straightforward.

This guide will help you navigate the offer, avoid migration errors and get the most out of Microsoft 365.

Which plan to choose?

Microsoft offers several plans for businesses. Here is a comparison of the most common ones:

Our recommendation: For most small businesses, the ideal solution is Business Standard. You will receive full-featured desktop applications and cloud services. We recommend Business Premium for companies that process sensitive data or require advanced device management.

What you gain in practice

Exchange Online (emails), professional email accounts with your domain (jan@yourcompany.cz). 50 GB mailbox size, 99.9% reliability, advanced anti-spam and antivirus. Calendars shared among employees.

Microsoft Teams: the company's communication hub. Chat, video calls, screen sharing, meeting scheduling. Replaces Zoom, Slack and part of email communication. Integrates with all other Microsoft 365 services.

SharePoint and OneDrive, shared repository for company documents. OneDrive is personal (1 TB per user), SharePoint is corporate. Documents sync across computers and are accessible from mobile devices. File versions are retained. You can revert to a previous version.

Desktop applications Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook. Always the latest version with automatic updates. One user can have the applications on up to 5 devices (PC, Mac, tablet, phone).

How email migration is carried out

The most common concern among businesses: "Will we lose our emails?" The answer is no, provided the migration is carried out correctly. The procedure is as follows:

1. Preparation: map the existing email environment (number of mailboxes, data volume, current hosting)
2. Domain configuration. We will verify your domain in Microsoft 365 and configure the DNS records
3. Creating accounts. We will set up an account for each employee using their email address
4. Data transmission We are migrating emails, contacts and calendars from the old system. This is happening in the background without interruption.
5. Switching. We will update the DNS records so that new emails are routed to Microsoft 365. Downtime: a maximum of a few minutes.
6. Client settings We will configure Outlook on all employees' computers and mobile devices.

The entire migration typically takes 1-3 days, with most of that time spent on background data transfer. For employees, the transition is practically painless.

Management and administration

Microsoft 365 is managed via the web-based admin centre. Here you can:

• Adding and removing users
• Reset passwords
• Assign licenses (you do not pay for users you do not need).
• Setting security policies
• Monitor service usage

If you have an IT administrator (internal or external), they will handle the administration. You do not need to worry about technical details.

Most common installation errors

• MFA not switched on, multi-factor authentication is a critical security feature that many companies ignore. More in our article about IT security.
• Non-use of Teams Many companies purchase Microsoft 365 and continue to use email for everything. Teams saves time on internal communication.
• Missing deposit Microsoft guarantees service availability but does not back up your data for you. Deleted emails will be permanently removed after 30 days. We recommend backing up with a third party.
• Poor planning Buying Business Premium for a company where Basic suffices is wasteful. Conversely, not having desktop applications when employees need them hinders work.
• No SharePoint structure: without a well-thought-out structure, SharePoint will become an unmanageable dump of files.

Total cost

For a company with 10 employees on the Business Standard plan:

• Licence: 10 x 310 Kč = 3,100 Kč per month
• Migration and setup: 8,000-20,000 Kč one-off
• Client configuration: included in migration

For 3 100 Kč per month, you get emails, Office, Teams, 10 TB of shared storage and automatic updates. For comparison: a standalone boxed licence for Office 2024 costs around 10 000 Kč per computer.

How we can help you

As IT manager in Prague 1 We regularly deploy Microsoft 365. We advise on plan selection, perform migration without downtime and configure the environment to maximise its value. After deployment we ensure ongoing management and support.