Google to Microsoft 365

A national retail business with over 200 employees spread across a head office in Berkshire and 14 stores throughout the South of England had been using Google Workspace for several years. While the platform had served them well initially, the company had grown significantly and the limitations were becoming apparent. Their point-of-sale systems ran on Windows, their finance team relied on desktop Excel with macros that were incompatible with Google Sheets, and attempts to use Google Meet for company-wide meetings were hampered by poor integration with existing workflows. The business also needed more robust security and compliance features - including data loss prevention and advanced threat protection - that were available within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem but absent from their Google plan. Leadership had made the strategic decision to move to Microsoft 365 but were understandably concerned about the disruption a migration of this scale could cause. With stores open seven days a week and no dedicated IT department, they needed a partner who could handle the entire process with minimal impact on day-to-day operations.

Coffee Cup Solutions designed and delivered a phased migration programme over a five-week period. We began with a comprehensive discovery phase, cataloguing every Google Workspace account, shared drive, calendar, and contact list to build a complete migration map. We provisioned the Microsoft 365 tenant, configured Azure AD with the existing domain, and set up the core services - Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Teams. Using BitTitan MigrationWiz, we performed an initial background synchronisation of all email, calendar, and contact data while users continued working in Google, ensuring no data would be lost during the cutover. Drive files were mapped to a combination of SharePoint document libraries for shared team content and individual OneDrive accounts for personal files, preserving folder structures and permissions. The actual cutover was executed in three waves - head office first, followed by southern stores, and then the remaining locations - each timed for Sunday evenings to minimise disruption. DNS records were updated, mail flow was switched, and by Monday morning each wave of users logged in to their new Microsoft 365 environment with all their data in place. We configured Microsoft Defender for Office 365 with anti-phishing policies, enabled conditional access to secure mobile device access, and set up data loss prevention policies for sensitive financial data. Across all locations, we delivered a blend of in-person and video-based training sessions tailored to different roles - store staff received focused Outlook and Teams training, while the head office teams had additional sessions covering SharePoint, OneDrive, and advanced Excel features.