Microsoft 365 Licensing and Support
The licences almost every business already has, usually with more seats than staff and the wrong mix of tiers. Reviewing it is one of the few IT exercises that reliably saves money.
Request a quoteMost estates have drifted
Microsoft 365 licensing drifts in a predictable way. People leave and their licence is not reclaimed, so the business pays for seats nobody uses. Everybody was put on the same tier at the outset, so warehouse staff who need email and nothing else are on the same licence as the finance team. And features that are already paid for — the security tooling in the higher tiers especially — sit switched off because nobody knew they were included.
A review addresses all three. Unused seats are reclaimed, tiers are matched to what people actually do, and the tooling you are already paying for gets turned on. It is unusual among IT exercises in that it frequently reduces the bill rather than increasing it, and the saving is recurring. It also produces something useful in itself: an accurate list of who has access to what, which most businesses do not have.
Beyond licensing there is the ongoing part — the tenant configuration, multi-factor authentication, conditional access rules, mailbox and file permissions, and what happens to an account when somebody leaves. That last one is worth naming, because the most common security finding in a small business is not a sophisticated attack; it is a former employee whose account still works months after they left.
What a review covers
Seats versus staff
The count of licences against the count of people. Almost always the first thing that does not match.
Tier matched to role
Not everybody needs the same licence. Paying one price for everyone is simple and usually wasteful.
MFA everywhere
Including the accounts that were exempted for convenience and never revisited. Those are the exposure.
A proper leaver process
Accounts disabled, data retained, access removed. The most common finding in any small-business review.
Features already paid for
Security tooling included in the tier you already buy, switched off because nobody knew it was there.
Support that knows the tenant
Somebody who has seen your configuration before, rather than starting from nothing on every call.
Who we work with
We are independent of any single network or vendor, so the recommendation follows the requirement.
Network & security
We build on the platform that fits the requirement rather than the one we happen to stock.
Fortinet
Palo Alto
Ubiquiti
Forcepoint
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What reviews usually find
- More licences than employees, sometimes considerably more
- Accounts belonging to people who left months or years ago and still work
- Everybody on one tier, regardless of what they actually do
- Multi-factor authentication exempted for a few accounts and never reinstated
- Security features included in the current licence and never switched on
- No agreed process for what happens to an account when somebody leaves
Microsoft 365 Licensing and Support — Common Questions
How do we know if we are paying for licences we do not use?
Compare the seat count on the invoice with your headcount. They almost never match, because licences are assigned when people join and rarely reclaimed when they leave. The gap is recurring cost, and it is usually the first and largest finding of any review.
Does everybody need the same licence?
No, and putting everybody on one tier is the second most common source of waste. Warehouse and field staff who need email and a phone rarely need the same licence as finance or management. Matching tiers to roles takes a little more setup and produces a saving that repeats every month.
Are we already paying for security features we are not using?
Very often, yes. The higher Microsoft 365 tiers include security tooling that sits switched off because nobody knew it was included. Turning it on costs nothing beyond the configuration time, and it is a better first step than buying a separate product to do the same job.
What happens to an account when somebody leaves?
That should be a defined process — the account disabled immediately, the data retained where it is needed and the licence reclaimed. In practice it is frequently nobody’s job, and the most common finding in a small-business review is an account belonging to somebody who left months ago that still works.
Can you support Microsoft 365 as well as supply it?
Yes, and they work better together. Support from somebody who has seen your tenant configuration before is materially faster than support that starts from nothing on every call, particularly for the things that recur — permissions, shared mailboxes, device enrolment and access problems after somebody changes role.
Will moving our licences to you disrupt anything?
No. Changing who supplies the licences does not change the tenant, the data or anyone’s login. It is a billing relationship change rather than a migration, which is why it is usually the easiest saving available — the disruption people expect is not there.
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Compare your seat count to your headcount
If those two numbers differ, the gap is money leaving every month. A review takes very little of your time, and it is one of the few IT exercises that usually ends with a smaller bill than it started with.