With the start of the new year, Canadian credit unions should examine how they can meet their members’ needs for the upcoming year.
If you’re still using legacy versions of Microsoft Office, there has never been a better time to think about transitioning your credit union to Microsoft 365. Digital transformation is such a hot topic in the banking world right now, and it’s easy to forget that part of achieving your digital transformation goals is moving all aspects of your operations to cloud-based infrastructures – including everyday business applications like your Microsoft suite of products.
With more teams working remotely than ever before, Microsoft 365 allows you to store everything in the cloud, giving your people access to their files from anywhere and allowing them to collaborate and make updates in real-time. Beyond being more practical than outdated versions of Microsoft Office, Microsoft 365 also helps credit unions meet regulatory standards for maintaining and storing important data and helps you meet certain security requirements.
Over the past few years, Celero has mastered our repeatable process by completing 56 credit union Microsoft 365 migrations. This tremendous task represents approximately 3000 individual users, 4000 different mailboxes and over 4.0 TB of data.
Still not convinced? Let’s dive in and explore some of these Microsoft 365 benefits and how Celero can make the migration seamless.
It’s Easier to Comply with Data Retention Regulations Using Microsoft 365
As a credit union, you know that you are required to store certain records and data for what can feel like forever. This requires a lot of storage space to keep all these original documents on hand and secure.
With Microsoft 365, your information is stored in the cloud using Microsoft’s data centers, which is advantageous for data availability and redundancy. Your team can continue to work on files in their original location with multiple version storage, so no more emailing files back and forth and losing track of which version is most up to date.
As an additional layer of security, sensitivity labels can be used to:
- Enforce protection settings such as encryption or watermarks on labeled content
- Protect content in Office apps across different platforms and devices
- Protect content in third-party apps and services
- Extend sensitivity labels to third-party apps and services
- Classify content without using any protection settings
When you assign a sensitivity label to a document or email, it’s like a stamp that’s applied to content that is customizable. You can create categories for different levels of sensitive content in your organization, such as public, confidential and sensitive.
Your Member and Company Information will be More Secure
Ask anyone who works in IT, and they will tell you that moving to cloud-based infrastructure opens you up to all kinds of cyber security risk. While this is generally true, your approach to addressing and proactively managing that risk is what really counts. There’s a reason why organizations trust Celero products provide secure email using Outlook along with a suite of other business applications: we set the industry standard in security.
In fact, moving to the cloud with the security offered by Celero presents an extremely low risk, especially when you compare it to the vulnerabilities that are present with an over-the-counter Microsoft 365 implementation. Addressing these vulnerabilities and gaps in security is more important than ever with people working from home, and you can trust Microsoft and Celero to provide 24/7 monitoring of your systems with Microsoft 365.
Allow Your Team to Work From Anywhere, Easily
One of the main things employees and employers alike love about Microsoft 365 is its ability to let you work from anywhere on any device. With the cloud-based technology of Microsoft 365, employees can access their files and collaborate using OneDrive and SharePoint, and they can host meetings and quickly communicate using Teams.
Celero protects your data by leveraging a secure baseline of identity management and endpoint management to ensure your company information is protected beyond the corporate boundary. With virtual and hybrid work as the norm, Microsoft 365 enables your employees to collaborate and connect no matter where they are.
Transition Seamlessly With the Help of a Third-party IT Expert
All of this might sound pretty good in theory, but still leaves you asking, “where am I going to find the time to implement this?”. At Celero, we have the expertise you’re looking for to transition to Microsoft 365.
We’ll fully manage your migration and provide ongoing support through our Microsoft 365 Managed Services. This includes self-led training for your employees to make sure everyone is comfortable with the Microsoft 365 products and features, continuous sharing of what’s new in Microsoft 365, access to our service desk for troubleshooting and support, license management to ensure you and your employees have access to the right applications to save you money, and more.
This takes the pressure off you and your IT team as we manage everything, letting you focus on your other priorities. If you’re ready, we’d love to chat about how we can help you make the switch. Contact us or talk to your Celero Account Executive to learn more.