Migrate From Box to OneDrive for Business During an M&A

Compared to consolidating two similar cloud offices during an M&A, migrating from a user-oriented/standalone cloud storage, such as Box, to a cloud office suite, such as Microsoft 365, can be more challenging, adding more to the complexities of the M&A activity.

The differences in Box and OneDrive for Business create several technical challenges, such as varying limitations for file/folder name characters, folder path length, supported file type, differences in user roles, and more.

To overcome all the limitations and align the Box to OneDrive for Business migration project with the M&A, it is critical to get clarity into the key prerequisites and strategize the project accordingly. This post can be a good starting point to get insights into the action items that form a framework for migration strategizing.

Migrating Users and Data in Sync with the M&A Timeline

Keeping up with the planned timeline is key in most M&As as wrapping up the merger/acquisition project on time is one of the core indicators of success. The entire IT team and other stakeholders involved in the migration planning must have clarity on the M&A timeframe and plan the migration timeline accordingly.

And when planning the migration timeline, it is crucial to understand the estimated time to migrate the finalized list of user accounts and data. If variables such as volume of user data, token access, data encryption, and nested files/folders cause the migration to exceed the timeline, it is best to run parallel instances concurrently.

Adhering to the User Hierarchy and Folder Structure of the Target Company

When consolidating the work environments of both companies during an M&A, it is crucial that the target company adjusts its environment to the intricacies of the acquirer’s environment, with user hierarchy being one of the most critical aspects.

Interestingly, IT teams can avoid the heavy lifting in strategizing user mapping from Box to SharePoint Online and OneDrive as the existing user hierarchy of the acquirer should inform the decisions. Apart from consolidating user roles and permissions accordingly, it may also be necessary to make relevant modifications to the folder structures.

Merging Email Systems in a Comprehensive Way

Although user accounts and data are the core aspects in any migration, other vital aspects of the cloud work environments, such as email systems and whiteboards, cannot be overlooked. And when migrating emails to the destination cloud environment, it is crucial to move them comprehensively with metadata and associated features, including:

• Contacts
• Calendar syncs
• Tasks
• Email groups
• Notes
• Distribution lists
• Shared mailboxes

Preserving Links and Making Them Accessible to the Target Company

Retaining the integrity of links is a technical feat to achieve in migrations of any size, and M&A projects add more to the complexity as the target company’s teams must also have access to them. Link migration tools that consolidate with the standard user and data migration, such as CloudFuze LinkEx, help ease the IT team of both companies to migrate links in ways that make business sense as per the M&A goals.

With a feature rich email migration tool like CloudFuze LinkEx, IT teams can:

• Migrate links in high volume without breaking them
• Repairing broken links and making them accessible to the target company

Setting up a Dedicated Help Desk to Address Both Company’s Concerns

Getting communications right is one of the crucial elements of migration success during an M&A. Proper communication is important not just when the migration is in progress but also when validating the migrated accounts, data, emails, links, chat messages, and whiteboards. And one of the best ways to bridge communication gaps is setting up a helpdesk dedicated solely for the M&A migration project.

With CloudFuze as a strategic M&A cloud office migration partner, companies and their IT teams can set up a dedicated help desk for 24/7 enterprise-grade priority support.

Streamlining Microsoft 365 Adoption Within the Acquiring Company

During an M&A, the target company users need to adapt to the destination cloud environment (Microsoft 365 in this case) in ways specific to the workflow of the acquiring company. Therefore, it is crucial to build a repository of Microsoft 365 adoption resources while aligning the onboarding processes to match the overall setup of the acquiring company’s Microsoft 365 environment.

Apart from cloud office migrations for M&A and standard use cases, your IT team can also opt for professional managed services for Microsoft 365, which includes onboarding and extensive cloud suite management.