Cyclotron simplifies IT transitions during mergers and acquisitions by ensuring seamless migrations from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365. Discover key strategies and best practices to minimize disruption and maintain business continuity.
Author: Nate Hart,
M&A Manager @ Cyclotron
The most successful mergers, acquisitions, and divestures require seamless IT transformations, ensuring business continuity through robust data protections and well-communicated tool consolidations. For organizations moving from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365, a seamless transformation demands strategic planning, expert guidance, and enterprise-ready tools. Cyclotron specializes in simplifying these migrations, ensuring minimal disruption while delivering a secure and compliant environment tailored to your business needs. Here are some key steps you should consider for a smooth transition from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365:
Addressing the Complexities of Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures (M&A)
Migrating IT Systems in an M&A scenario presents unique challenges that are key to address before, during, and after migration:
Maintaining a Consistent User Experience
We understand how important it is to minimize user disruption during a transition to maintain employee morale and productivity. Employees often rely heavily on familiar workflows in Google Workspace, such as shared files in Google Drive or collaborative editing in Google Docs. Without proper planning, a shift to Microsoft 365 can lead to confusion, reduced efficiency, and resistance to change. We ensure a smooth transition by providing tailored end-user training, mapping familiar Google Workspace workflows to equivalent Microsoft 365 tools during the migration. This approach keeps employees productive and confident that their data will be readily available throughout migration.
Coordinating with Multiple Workstreams
Every workstream comes with its own timelines, dependencies, and requirements, making precise alignment essential. During an M&A migration, email systems need to be migrated while simultaneously transitioning file storage or implementing new collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams. At Cyclotron, we ensure continuous alignment by strategically synchronizing technical workstream dependencies and establishing clear communication channels to minimize disruptions, avoid duplication efforts, and maintain a consistent user experience throughout the migration process.
Cloud Incompatibilities
Google Workspace and Microsoft handle authentication, email, files, and workflows differently and require careful alignment. For example, Google Workspace uses a label-based system for email, while Microsoft 365 relies on folder-based organization. This difference can lead to duplicate emails in multiple folders, frustrating users and disrupting critical business processes. Cyclotron bridges these gaps by meticulously mapping labels to folders and leveraging advanced options with third-party tools. For example, using BitTitan allows for configuring migration settings to control the number of concurrent mailbox migrations. You can also filter out oversized emails that exceed a specified limit and exclude specific folders or map source folders to target folders for better organization.
Coexistence of Google and Microsoft 365
For some organizations, there may be a need for coexistence, with a deep knowledge of both Google and Microsoft to weigh the pros and cons effectively. We educate our customers on the possibilities of email routing coexistence during migrations. However, certain limitations exist when it comes to features such as calendars and resource availability. Migrating Google Rooms to Exchange Online is necessary to enable accurate scheduling and visibility across platforms. Cyclotron’s time-tested strategy uses a smooth transition plan addressing these issues while balancing immediate business needs with long-term migration goals.
Best Practices and Lessons Learned
From our experience with M&A migrations we’ve learned that:
Early discovery is critical. Identifying potential incompatibilities early helps avoid surprises during the migration.
Change Leadership is required for a successful migration. Layering in Change Leadership throughout your migration efforts ensures that everyone, from the executive team to delivery and project teams, are all aligned with dates of execution.
End-user training drives success. Proactive communication and training equip teams with the desire and knowledge needed to embrace new tools and technologies, ensuring a seamless migration.
Designing for Success – Cyclotron's Approach
Successful M&A migrations call for expert strategies and proven transition plans. Cyclotron is committed to driving client success and leverages a unique combination of expertise, best practices, and a tailored approach to develop a comprehensive migration plan designed to overcome the complexities of M&A migrations. To ensure efficient and effective migrations, our teams focus on:
Automation Where Possible – Using tools like BitTitan MigrationWiz, Sharegate, and Quest for efficient data transfer across multiple workloads. Leveraging more than one tool allows a tailored approach instead of a one size fits all approach since not all tools are equal in their capabilities nor costs.
Hands-On Support - Not everything can be automated. Both native and 3rd party tools require careful consideration and expert guidance for manual processes.
Feature to Feature Mapping – Cyclotron has the experience in both Google Workspace and Microsoft technology, helping your organization easily map capabilities without losing features.
Microsoft Best Practices – Cyclotron follows Microsoft’s recommended frameworks and methodologies, enhanced with our expertise in change leadership and robust program management.
M&A migrations are extremely complex. With Cyclotron, you have a partner who understands the unique challenges of these transitions. We combine enterprise-ready tools, Microsoft recommended frameworks, and hands-on experience tailored to your environment to deliver seamless IT transformations.
Ready to simplify your next IT transformation? Get in touch today to help guide your migration with expertise and unmatched support.