Maestro Knitting consolidates Microsoft 365 services across regions.
Maestro Knitting needed an experienced partner to conduct a Microsoft 365 services migration across three tenants. Due diligent planning, seamless execution, and continuous monitoring is the key to ensure minimal disruption and data integrity during migration.
Nuwey helped Maestro Knitting to simplify usage of Microsoft 365 services and improve collaboration between departments and business units.
In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, organisations are constantly seeking ways to enhance collaboration, improve efficiency, and optimise their technology landscape. Such ambitions are often catalysed by transformative events like mergers, acquisitions, or strategic shifts that necessitate the consolidation of resources and data. This case study outlines the rationale and benefits for undertaking a tenant-to-tenant migration, specifically focusing on the migration of digital assets from disparate Microsoft Office 365 tenants into a unified, single-tenant environment.
Client Background
Maestro Knitting is an international fashion knitwear production company. It was founded in 2010 in Shanghai. After almost 10 years of activity in China, Maestro expanded to Europe with the aim of producing closer to their Italian spinners (yarn is mostly produced in Italy) and of making “made in Europe”. The company develops and produces knitted garments for French, British and American brands with focus on high quality and craftsmanship. Maestro Knitting aims at having a global coverage and currently operates offices in China, Portugal, and Bulgaria.
Microsoft 365 is used by the whole company as it meets Maestro Knitting’s communication and collaboration needs. However, a cloud governance framework did not exist at the time. Due to the company growth and expansion to more regions/countries, a few new cloud tenants emerged. These tenants formed a decentralised distribution of M365 services whereby each region/country was using their own tenant, security policies and administration. Such model created several business and IT-related challenges for the company which led to the decision to consolidate their three M365 tenants into a single one for an improved collaboration and streamlined IT operations within the company.
Nuwey as a trusted partner was nominated to help Maestro Knitting with performing a smooth consolidation and overcoming the existing challenges.
“We chose Nuwey because we trust their experts.
They are putting the quality of the services and
customer care above everything else.”
KALOYAN KRUMOV
IT Manager, Maestro Knitting
Project Challenges
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Data Segregation: All three Maestro Knitting branches (China, Portugal, and Bulgaria) had separate Office 365 tenants with distinct user accounts, emails, Teams, SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts, and other resources. Merging these data sets while ensuring proper segregation was a significant challenge.
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Identity Management: Merge and consolidation of user accounts, each with unique email addresses, usernames, and authentication methods, required careful planning to avoid disruptions and ensure a smooth transition.
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Communication and Training: Informing employees about the migration process, potential disruptions, and new workflows was essential to minimise confusion and resistance to change.
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Data Loss and Downtime: Ensuring data integrity and minimising downtime during the migration process was critical to maintain business continuity.
Consolidation Journey
Results and Benefits
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Unified Collaboration: By merging both source tenants into existing target one, Maestro Knitting achieved a unified collaboration environment, improving communication and data sharing across the organisation.
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Cost Savings: Managing a single Office 365 tenant resulted in a reduced administrative overhead and licensing costs compared to maintaining three separate tenants.
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Enhanced Productivity: Employees experienced enhanced productivity due to streamlined workflows and improved access to shared resources.
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Data Integrity: Careful planning and thorough testing ensured and maintained data integrity during the migration process.
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Smooth Transition: Effective communication and training minimised disruption and resistance to change among employees, leading to a smoother transition.
Key Takeaways
Tenant-to-tenant migrations pose complex challenges, but with careful planning, robust migration strategies, and comprehensive testing, it is possible to achieve a successful migration that benefits both employees and the organisation as a whole. Clear communication, right migration approach and tooling, employee training, and post-migration support are crucial elements for ensuring a smooth transition and maximising the benefits of the migration. If you need help with a similar scenario do not hesitate to contact us today. You can also check out our M&A page which outlines the capabilities we offer.