Microsoft E5 – Making it work for you

Microsoft E5 represents the pinnacle of Microsoft 365 licencing, bundling together a comprehensive set of applications and advanced security features. Despite this, organisations often underutilise it’s features and fail to reap the potential benefits that they are paying for. We look at some of the reasons for this and how to make E5 work for you.

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Complexity

Issue - E5 offers a multitude of applications and security features but organisations often do not have the resources and knowledge to take advantage of these.

 

Solution – Work with the business to identify problems and match these with potential solutions offered by E5. This will allow you to prioritise where you expend effort and resources.

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Rate of Change

Issue - Microsoft evolves it’s products and launches new features at a rapid pace. This makes it difficult for organisations to keep pace with the rate of change.

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Solution - Engage with experts in the field to assist with identifying where new features and updates can help you. Microsoft’s feature roadmap is regularly updated and a good place to start.

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Expertise

Issue - Implementing and maintaining E5 features and applications requires specialist skills. Experts in the E5 product set are highly sought after and relatively scarce in the New Zealand market.

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Solution - Supplement existing teams with specialist skills, accepting that the best way to do this may be to outsource.

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Tracking usage

Issue - E5 licences are not cheap and many organisations fail to adequately track usage of them. This means they are often paying for more licences than they actually need.

 

Solution – Assess your licence usage and have a process to regularly review it. Microsoft offer automated reporting tools to help with this