The challenge
The organization was growing quickly and taking on work with stricter compliance requirements, including government contracts. Its email and files still ran on a standard cPanel web-hosting account, which had been fine at the start and was now holding the team back.
When we audited the setup, we found five problems.
- Support that couldn't keep up. As the organization grew, issues came up more often than its hosting support was set up to handle. Requests waited in a queue, and the team spent too much time waiting for answers while work was on hold.
- Unreliable email and shared passwords. Messages frequently failed to deliver. General addresses such as contact@ and hello@ were used by several people signing in with the same password, so there was no record of who had replied to a client or changed something.
- Files scattered everywhere. Company data lived on individual computers, in cloud accounts nobody managed, and in old FTP folders on the hosting account. There was no single place to find the current version of a file, and it wasn't always clear who owned what.
- No backups of staff computers. Nothing was backing up individual laptops. A failed drive or a stolen device could have meant lost work and delayed projects.
- Everything depended on one account. The domain name was registered through the web host. A billing or administrative problem with that one account could have taken down the website, the email and control of the domain at the same time.
Our solution
We moved the organization off the hosting account and onto a managed Microsoft 365 setup, in six steps.
1. Bringing the files together
This was the largest part of the project. We worked with the team to track down files across personal cloud accounts and local drives, then moved them into a structured SharePoint site. All company data now sits in one place the company owns, and people see only what their role requires.
2. Separating the domain from the hosting
We moved the domain registration away from the web host to a dedicated, registrar. The organization's domain no longer depends on its hosting account.
3. Shared mailboxes in place of shared passwords
We moved all email to Microsoft 365 and turned the general addresses into shared mailboxes. Team members open those inboxes with their own sign-in, so there's a clear history of who sent what.
4. Tighter security and an audit trail
We applied security policies across the organization, including mandatory multi-factor authentication. Leadership can now see when and where accounts are being accessed, which the old setup couldn't show them.
5. Automatic backup for every laptop
We set up OneDrive so the important folders on each laptop sync to the cloud as people work. If a laptop fails, a replacement can be set up with all of that person's files restored in minutes.
6. Training the team
We ran training sessions and wrote documentation specific to the organization, so staff could move from the old way of working to the new one with minimal disruption to their active projects.
The results
- Company data is in one secure, company-owned location, not spread across personal accounts
- Every message sent from a shared address can be traced to the person who sent it
- Multi-factor authentication protects every account, and sign-ins can be audited
- A lost or broken laptop no longer means lost work
- The domain is independent of the web host, so one account problem can't take everything down
- The organization has a stable setup to build on as it pursues and delivers larger contracts
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