Most of the companies whose IT we take over use two things out of Microsoft 365: Outlook and Word. They pay for the whole licence. The rest sits idle, and the work it would take off their hands is still done by hand.
This is not a training problem. It is a question of order: which feature solves a problem you actually have today — and which one is merely present?
What the licence already includes
Microsoft 365 is not a set of Office apps with cloud storage attached. It is a platform for collaboration, storage, identity and device security. The applications are the visible part of it.
What comes with it, without buying anything extra:
- Working on the same files together, without emailing versions around
- Access to your data from the office, from home and on the road, through one sign-in
- Central administration of accounts, devices and permissions
- Multi-factor sign-in and protection against the common attack routes
A look into the admin centre shows which of these layers is already running and which is dormant. How we set that up and run it sits with the ALPENIQ IT division.
Teams: replacing internal email
Microsoft Teams gets introduced as a video-call tool and often stays that. The bigger effect is elsewhere: Teams replaces internal email.
The chat about a project, the files that belong to it, the open tasks and the meeting about it all live in one place. Someone joining later reads up instead of asking around.
The switching effort is real and routinely underestimated. It pays off where several people work on the same cases — for single-desk work, barely.
OneDrive and SharePoint: two stores, two purposes
These two get mixed up constantly, and most of the mess starts there.
OneDrive is personal storage. Anything only one person works on belongs there, synced to their devices and versioned.
SharePoint is shared storage. Anything owned by the company rather than by a person belongs there: quotes, contracts, documentation, templates.
The rule of thumb: if a document has to survive an employee leaving, it belongs in SharePoint. If it sits in their OneDrive, their departure turns it into a problem.
Copilot: where AI carries day-to-day work
Microsoft 365 Copilot summarises meetings, drafts replies, pulls figures out of spreadsheets and produces first versions of presentations.
Here is what matters and is easily missed: Copilot sees everything the signed-in person can access. If permissions are messy, the AI makes visible what was only theoretically open before. Cleaning up permissions therefore comes before the rollout, not after it.
Where automation reaches beyond the Office applications, the ALPENIQ AI division is the right address. What such a workflow looks like is covered in using AI in business processes.
Automating workflows
Approvals, holiday requests, document sign-offs, notifications when something new arrives: in many companies these consist of an email and a reminder.
The tools in the licence can carry them so that the current state is always visible and nothing stalls. The gain is rarely time in the first step — it is that cases stop falling through.
Security: the part that comes first
Microsoft 365 Business Premium adds what the smaller licence lacks: device management, advanced threat protection, conditional access policies and encryption.
Three things are worth doing regardless of licence tier:
- Multi-factor sign-in on every account, with no exception for management
- Permissions based on what someone needs for the work, not on convenience
- A backup that lives outside Microsoft 365
The third one surprises people regularly: Microsoft runs the platform, but it does not protect your data against your own deletion. What belongs to that is on the IT security page.
Administration in one place
Accounts, devices, licences and policies run through the same console. This is where your operating effort is decided.
Onboarding becomes one task instead of seven: create the account, assign the licence, set the groups, enrol the device. Offboarding likewise — and completely, which rarely succeeds across scattered tools.
Connecting to other systems
Microsoft 365 rarely stands alone. Alongside it run a CRM, accounting, often an industry-specific system.
Through the interfaces each vendor provides, these can be connected so data is not entered twice. What is genuinely possible depends on those interfaces — and that belongs checked before a project, not after. That work sits with ALPENIQ Labs; the reasoning behind it is in custom software or off-the-shelf.
Where to start
If you already have Microsoft 365 and want more out of it, the order is almost always the same:
- Sort out permissions and storage structure before adding new tools
- Enforce multi-factor sign-in
- Set up a backup outside the platform
- Roll out Teams for one working group, not for everyone at once
- Only then Copilot and automation
Doing it the other way round means building automation on a filing structure nobody understands.
Conclusion
For most SMEs, Microsoft 365 is already paid for. The question is not whether the licence is worth it, but which part of it solves a problem today — and in what order.
Set up properly, the platform carries collaboration, storage, identity and device security on one foundation. Set up carelessly, it multiplies whatever disorder was there before.
If you want to know what is lying idle in your environment and what should come first, we will look at it together. Details on rollout and operation are on the Microsoft 365 page, and the simplest way to talk it through is a free strategy call.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Is Microsoft 365 worth it for small companies?
From roughly three people working on the same documents, yes. The value comes not from the applications but from shared storage, one sign-in for everything and central administration. For single-desk work without collaboration the advantage is far smaller, and a leaner licence usually covers it.
What is the difference between OneDrive and SharePoint?
OneDrive is one person's storage, SharePoint the company's shared storage. The rule of thumb: whatever has to survive an employee leaving belongs in SharePoint. Keeping company-owned documents in a personal OneDrive is the most common mistake in environments that grew over time.
Do I need a separate backup?
Yes. Microsoft runs the platform and protects it against its own outages, not against yours. Deleted items are recoverable only for a limited window, after which they are gone. A backup outside Microsoft 365 is basic equipment, not a luxury.
What does Microsoft 365 cost for an SME?
The price depends on the licence tier and the number of people, and it changes regularly — which is why we do not quote a figure here that would be wrong tomorrow. What matters more is which tier you need: Business Premium earns its place as soon as device management and advanced protection are required.
How does ALPENIQ support Microsoft 365?
We review the existing environment, clean up permissions and storage, set up security and backup, and then roll out the features that genuinely take work off your hands. After that we keep running the environment so the order holds.