Infrastructure / Microsoft 365 and Azure / Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 : You're already paying for everything. The question is: Which features have you enabled?
The subscription includes email, documents, video conferencing, phone service, data protection, and computer management. Many companies use three of these services.Services you haven't enabled are charged at the same rate as the ones you use every day. And the ones you have enabled almost always run with the default configuration—the one Microsoft provides for everyone. A Microsoft 365 environment is configured, monitored, and managed—it isn't set up once and for all.
Three things a subscription doesn't do on its own
None of these three is a malfunction, which is why no one reports them. They come to light during an inspection, a trip, or an insurance claim.
The services have been paid for, but half of them were never activated
Document protection, computer management, telephone services, and analysis of fraudulent emails: all of these are included in subscriptions that many companies are already paying for without having activated them. The cost is incurred, but the benefit is not.
The first step is to figure out what you already have.
The default configuration is the same for all companies
Microsoft provides an environment that is designed to work equally well for a group of three people as for a group of 100,000. It is therefore open by design: accessible from any device, from any country, and without distinguishing between internal documents and those that may be shared externally.
What protects a company is what we add afterward.
The documents followed the people, not the organization
Everyone saved their files wherever it was easiest: their personal space, a chat, or an impromptu shared folder. Nothing is lost, and nothing can be found by anyone else. When an employee leaves, the company discovers what was stored in a single account.
A document belongs to a team, not to an individual.
Microsoft is constantly making changes to the service, and doesn't ask for your input.
A server installed on your premises stays exactly as you left it until the day you decide to make changes. A subscription Microsoft 365 — not so: new features appear, default settings change, services are renamed or removed, and announcements show up in an administration console that no one ever opens.
Practical implication: What you set up two years ago isn’t what works today. That’s why a Microsoft 365 environment requires ongoing maintenance—not just initial setup—and that’s also what distinguishes a provider who set up your subscription from one who manages it.
What's Included in Your Subscription, Service by Service
Each of these services has its own page, describing what it does, what it requires, and what it doesn't do. Start with the one that brought you here: none of them can be set up independently of the others, but only one determines the order.
Corporate Email
Emails, shared calendars, mailing lists, and shared inboxes. On a server on your premises, online, or both.
See the page → SharePointCompany Documents
The location where team folders are stored, along with version history and access permissions that align with the organization's structure.
See the page → OneDrive for BusinessEach employee's files
Personal storage space, which is synchronized with the computer and can be retrieved by the company on the day an employee leaves.
See the page →Teamwork and Videoconferencing
Chats, meetings, and screen sharing. This is the suite’s daily entry point: it displays documents, the calendar, and the phone all in one place.
Business Telephony
Your Swiss phone numbers, call handling, and call groups—all in the app your employees already use.
See the page → Microsoft Entra IDIdentities and Access
The directory of your employees' accounts. It's what determines what each person sees, and it's the first thing you should disable.
See the page → Microsoft IntuneComputer and Phone Management
Set up a device remotely, install what's needed on it, and wipe it if it goes missing—without anyone having to go pick it up.
See the page → Conditional AccessWho is logging in, from where, and on which device
The requirement before logging in: a recognized device, an additional verification step, or nothing at all when accessing the site from abroad.
See the page → Data Loss PreventionPrevent a document from being sent externally
Content review before sending: a credit card number, a contract, or a payroll file being sent to a private address.
See the page → Copilot for Microsoft 365The assistant that works within your documents
He writes, summarizes, and retrieves information—based on what the person is already authorized to view. That is why access rights must be set up beforehand.
See the page → Microsoft Copilot StudioThe assistants you build yourself
An assistant connected to your own data to answer internal questions or those from your customers.
See the page → MigrationMicrosoft 365 : Five migrations, in the correct order
Five migrations and a single schedule. The first one determines all the others, and there’s no making up for it.
See the page →At your office or at Microsoft: both answers are correct
Some of the features available at Microsoft 365 are also available in a version that can be installed on your own servers, and this version is still maintained by Microsoft. The right choice depends on your requirements and goals, not on what's trendy.
What we still install and maintain today
Some companies keep all or part of their IT infrastructure on their own servers for reasons of confidentiality, industry-specific requirements, latency, or applications that cannot function otherwise. These reasons are legitimate, and they do not disappear simply because an online service exists.
- Exchange Server — email services on your server, including the subscription-based version maintained by Microsoft.
- SharePoint Server — team documents and websites hosted on your premises.
- Skype for Business Server — telephony and meetings, on your infrastructure, in the subscription version maintained by Microsoft.
- File servers, domain controllers, and the internal directory service that everything else depends on.
What the subscription includes without requiring any equipment on your end
No more servers to replace every five years, no more updates to schedule on a Sunday, and a service accessible from anywhere. In exchange, you accept that the pace of updates will no longer be up to you, and that availability will depend on your Internet connection.
- Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive , and Microsoft Teams.
- Document protection and device management are included in the most comprehensive subscription plans.
- The Copilot assistant, which is available only in the online version.
- The choice of the country where the data will be hosted, which is determined when you open your account—Switzerland is one of the options.
A service provider who can only provide one of the two solutions will always offer you that one.
The same engineers will install a Exchange server at your location and migrate your email system to Microsoft 365. This is what allows us to advise you based on your specific challenges and goals rather than on what’s in our catalog—and you can verify this: ask for references from both sides.
In practice, the answer is rarely one or the other. Most of the companies we track operate using both at the same time, and have done so for years: this is a lasting state, not a transitional phase.
A mixed-use environment is a choice, not an unfinished project
To run a server on your premises alongside online services, you need a single directory, a consistent email system, and common access rules. This is a topic in its own right, and it has its own page.
A subscription left with its default settings grants access to anyone who enters a valid password— including someone who has obtained one of your employees' passwords.
This isn't a product flaw: Microsoft delivers an environment that's designed to work everywhere, for everyone, right from the start. What sets a secure company apart from a vulnerable one are the decisions made afterward—and those decisions are made in a single workday, not over six months.
A password alone no longer provides any protection
A password can be guessed, reused on another site, or given to someone impersonating your management in an email. Two-step verification closes this loophole, andconditional access then determines from which devices and countries a session can be opened.
A document leaves more easily than it comes in
A payroll file sent to a private address, a contract forwarded to a former colleague: none of this constitutes a security breach, and nothing prevents it by default. Document protection scans the content before it is sent.
A lost device takes everything that was on it with it
A laptop left on a train contains email, synced documents, and open sessions. As long as the device isn’t managed, there’s nothing to wipe remotely and nothing to prove to your insurance company.
Three Ways to Hire Us
They are not mutually exclusive, and most of the companies we track have transitioned from the first to the third. None of them require you to switch providers for the rest of your IT infrastructure.
Managing Your Current Environment
Your subscription is already active; it was set up years ago by someone who is no longer with us. We review the current configuration: the accounts that still exist, those with administrative privileges, the paid services that were never activated, the missing identity verifications, and the external sharing settings. Then we tell you what we would do, in what order, and what we would leave as is.
The project: to activate a service that is not yet active
Two-step verification for everyone, computer management, document protection, telephony in Microsoft Teams, and the launch of Copilot. Each is a well-defined task with an end date and a planned rollback. The same engineers see each task through to completion, and training the staff who will answer questions is part of the job—not an optional extra.
Day-to-Day Operations
This is our response to the fact that the service changes without notifying you. We read Microsoft’s announcements for you, let you know which ones apply to you, implement the necessary changes, and respond to your employees. Any incident that goes beyond what the console shows is logged as a case with Microsoft, which we open on your behalf. Details on our coverage hours and how calls are handled can be found on the Managed Services page.
Questions We're Asked Before We Get Started
Six short answers. Topics that require more detail have their own page, and the link is included in the answer.
Office 365 or Microsoft 365 —is that the same thing?
Yes. Microsoft renamed the suite " Microsoft 365 " in April 2020, and the name " Office 365 " no longer refers to any subscription currently available for purchase. Your old documents, invoices, and much of the internet still use the old name: it is indeed the same product.
The term "Office" is still used to refer to the software applications themselves—Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint—that are included in the subscription. The other names that have changed are listed in the glossary.
Does our data remain in Switzerland?
That’s possible, and it’s determined when you open your account. Microsoft offers data hosting in Switzerland for its core services—email, documents, and Microsoft Teams. The country is selected at the time of account creation and isn’t a setting you can change later with a single click.
Here's how it works: We check where your current account is located before doing anything else, because that determines what options are available moving forward. If your industry has stricter requirements, some of your IT infrastructure can remain on your own servers.
Do we have to migrate everything all at once?
No, and it’s actually rarely a good idea. Moving to Microsoft 365 actually involves five migrations: your employees’ accounts, email, documents, computers, and work processes. The only non-negotiable part is the order in which they’re done.
Details about this sequence—and what happens if you do it in reverse—can be found on the page Migration Microsoft 365.
Exchange : Our email system is still running on a server at our office. Should we shut it down?
Not necessarily. Exchange Server is still available in a version maintained by Microsoft, and keeping it on a server on your premises is a valid option: what matters is that you’re using a version that still receives updates.
The versions, end-of-support dates, and the six possible paths are listed on the page Exchange, on your servers, and online. We do both, and that’s where this advice comes from.
Can we keep our current service provider for the rest?
Yes, and things go smoothly when the division of responsibilities is clearly defined from the start: who is responsible for what, who is called in for which type of outage, and what each person is authorized to modify. We regularly work alongside the service provider that manages our clients’ network, servers, or business software.
What doesn't work is having two service providers manage the same environment without telling each other. Sharing administrative rights is part of the first step.
What We Don't Do
We do not train your employees in the day-to-day use of software: teaching Excel or creating a presentation is not our area of expertise, and there are organizations in French-speaking Switzerland that do this better than we do.
On the other hand, training the staff who will handle questions internally is part of the job, and it is not a separately billed service. They are the ones who handle the questions during the first week, and that is what makes the difference between a service that is embraced and one that is merely endured.
Related pages
Things related to Microsoft 365 that aren't subscription services.
Managed Services
Hours of coverage, how calls are handled, what is included, and what is not. This page describes regular operations.
Read the page Mergers, Acquisitions, Spin-offsMigration from one Microsoft 365 account to another
Two companies merge, or a business unit is spun off: two accounts are never merged, and it is this constraint that shapes the project.
Read the page The serversMigration to Microsoft Azure
Microsoft 365 handles email, documents, and computers. The business applications running on your servers, on the other hand, are moving to Azure.
Read the page Both togetherHybrid Environment
A single directory, a unified messaging system, and shared access between your servers and online services. The current reality for most businesses.
Read the page The departmentInfrastructure and External Hosting
Servers, computers, telephony, and identities. Microsoft 365 is part of this collection, and the collection has its own page.
Read the page NamesGlossary
What “tenant,” “Entra ID,” “hybrid,” or any of the other names Microsoft has changed since 2020 actually mean. No jargon—one entry per term.
Read the pageThe first meeting is with the engineers
An hour-long review of your current environment: what you’re already paying for, what’s enabled, what’s protecting your data today, and what’s still running on your own servers. You’ll walk away with a list of what’s already available to you and what’s missing, ranked by severity.
What we offer is the opportunity to meet the engineers who will do the work. Renens, Sion, Châtel-Saint-Denis — +41 21 806 37 15