How Your IT Company Can Make Microsoft 365 Better for Security and Productivity

Microsoft 365 gives businesses access to far more than Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams.

Depending on the licences in place, it can provide identity protection, device management, email security, cloud file storage, collaboration, compliance controls, automation, reporting and AI-assisted working.

The challenge is that simply purchasing Microsoft 365 does not guarantee that these capabilities are configured well—or used effectively.

Many organisations pay for features they have never enabled, rely on default settings that no longer match their risk, or allow Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive to grow without a clear structure. The result can be a platform that is more expensive, less secure and harder to use than it should be.

A capable IT company can improve Microsoft 365 by treating it as a managed business platform rather than a collection of subscriptions.

Start With a Microsoft 365 Health Check

Before changing anything, your IT provider should assess the current environment.

That review should cover:

• Microsoft 365 licences
• User and administrator accounts
• Multi-factor authentication
• Conditional Access
• Email-security policies
• Device compliance
• SharePoint and OneDrive sharing
• Teams configuration
• Data-retention requirements
• Backup arrangements
• Security alerts
• Secure Score
• Usage and adoption
• Unused accounts and licences

The purpose is to identify three things:

1. Where the organisation is exposed
2. Which paid features are underused
3. Which everyday processes are unnecessarily difficult

A good review should produce a prioritised improvement plan rather than a large technical report with no clear next step.

Improve Microsoft Secure Score

Microsoft Secure Score measures an organisation’s security posture by tracking recommended improvement actions across identities, applications, devices and data. A higher score generally indicates that more of Microsoft’s recommended controls have been implemented, although the score should be used as guidance rather than treated as a complete guarantee of security.

An IT company can review the recommendations and decide:

• Which controls are appropriate
• Which actions are already covered by another system
• Which changes could disrupt users
• Which improvements should be prioritised
• Which risks need formal acceptance

Common Secure Score improvements may include:

• Strengthening administrator protection
• Reducing legacy authentication
• Improving anti-phishing controls
• Enabling device-security policies
• Reviewing external sharing
• Increasing audit visibility
• Protecting high-risk accounts

The objective is not to chase 100% blindly. It is to implement the controls that reduce meaningful business risk without creating unnecessary disruption.

Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication Properly

Passwords alone are not enough to protect Microsoft 365 accounts.

A stolen password may allow an attacker to access:

• Email
• OneDrive
• SharePoint
• Teams
• Cloud applications
• Sensitive customer information

Multi-factor authentication adds another verification step, such as a Microsoft Authenticator prompt, security key or other approved method.

Your IT company should make sure MFA applies to:

• All users
• Administrators
• Contractors
• Remote workers
• Guest accounts where appropriate
• Emergency-access accounts through a controlled design

It should also review which authentication methods are permitted.

Older or weaker methods may not provide the same level of phishing resistance as modern approaches such as security keys and passkeys.

Use Conditional Access Instead of One Rule for Everyone

Conditional Access allows Microsoft Entra ID to evaluate signals before granting access.

These signals can include:

• User identity
• Device compliance
• Location
• Application
• Sign-in risk
• User risk
• Authentication strength

Microsoft describes Conditional Access as its Zero Trust policy engine because it combines these signals and applies access policies based on the circumstances of each request.

A well-designed policy might:

• Require MFA outside trusted locations
• Block outdated authentication
• Require compliant devices for sensitive data
• Prevent access from unsupported platforms
• Apply stronger controls to administrators
• Block high-risk sign-ins
• Limit access from unexpected countries
• Require approved applications on mobile devices

These policies should be introduced carefully.

A provider should begin in report-only mode where possible, analyse the effect and maintain protected emergency-access accounts before enforcing major restrictions.

Protect Administrator Accounts

Administrator accounts are valuable targets because they can change settings, access data and create new users.

Your IT company should:

• Reduce the number of Global Administrators
• Use separate everyday and administrative accounts
• Assign the least powerful role needed
• Require strong authentication
• Monitor privileged sign-ins
• Remove old administrator access
• Protect emergency accounts
• Review role assignments regularly

Microsoft recommends using roles with the fewest necessary permissions and limiting Global Administrator use to situations where a less privileged role cannot complete the task.

A person who manages Teams does not necessarily need full control of the entire Microsoft 365 tenant.

Strengthen Email Security

Email remains one of the most common routes into a business.

Attackers use:

• Phishing
• Fake invoices
• Password-stealing links
• Malicious attachments
• Supplier impersonation
• Executive impersonation
• QR-code scams
• Business email compromise

A managed Microsoft 365 environment should include appropriately configured:

• Anti-spam policies
• Anti-malware policies
• Anti-phishing protection
• Safe Links
• Safe Attachments
• Impersonation protection
• Quarantine procedures
• External-sender identification
• User reporting tools

These controls should be tested using realistic business scenarios.

An overly aggressive policy can block legitimate email, while a weak policy may allow dangerous messages through. Your IT provider should tune the system, review false positives and investigate recurring threats.

Configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC

Email authentication helps receiving systems determine whether a message claiming to come from your domain is legitimate.

A complete strategy normally includes:

• SPF
• DKIM
• DMARC

These controls can reduce the risk of criminals impersonating your company’s domain.

Your IT company should:

• Identify every authorised email sender
• Correct the SPF record
• Enable DKIM signing
• Introduce DMARC carefully
• Review reports
• Increase enforcement once valid services are confirmed

Moving directly to a strict DMARC policy without identifying marketing, invoicing and third-party systems can block legitimate messages.

The rollout should be planned rather than copied from a generic template.

Manage Devices With Microsoft Intune

Microsoft Intune can help manage computers, phones and tablets that access company information.

An IT provider can use it to:

• Apply security settings
• Require device encryption
• Deploy applications
• Configure Wi-Fi and VPN profiles
• Enforce screen-lock policies
• Check operating-system versions
• Remove business data from lost devices
• Restrict access from non-compliant equipment
• Standardise new-device deployment

Intune can integrate with Microsoft Defender and Conditional Access so that access decisions consider whether a device meets the organisation’s compliance requirements. Microsoft documents this flow as an integration between Intune, Defender for Endpoint and Entra Conditional Access.

This means a user may have the correct password and MFA, but still be blocked from sensitive services when using an unmanaged or risky computer.

Standardise Computers With Autopilot

Windows Autopilot can reduce the time required to prepare new computers.

Instead of manually configuring every laptop, an IT company can create a standard deployment that applies:

• Organisation branding
• Microsoft 365 applications
• Security policies
• Intune enrolment
• Wi-Fi and VPN settings
• Required business software
• Device restrictions
• Update policies

A new computer can then be delivered to the employee and configured through the managed sign-in process.

This improves both security and productivity because devices are built consistently and require less manual setup.

Deploy Microsoft Defender Correctly

Microsoft Defender products can provide protection across:

• Endpoints
• Email
• Identities
• Cloud applications
• Microsoft 365 services

The exact capabilities depend on licensing.

Your IT company should make sure that:

• Devices are onboarded
• Sensors are reporting
• Security intelligence is current
• Alerts reach the correct people
• Policies are appropriate for servers and workstations
• Incidents are investigated
• False positives are reviewed
• Response actions are documented

Purchasing Defender without monitoring its alerts leaves an important gap.

Security tools are most valuable when somebody is responsible for responding to what they detect.

Adopt Zero Trust Principles

Traditional security often assumes that a user or device can be trusted once it is inside the office network.

Zero Trust takes a different approach:

• Verify explicitly
• Use least privilege
• Assume breach

Microsoft’s Zero Trust guidance describes the model as verifying every request regardless of where it originates, rather than automatically trusting traffic because it comes from an internal network.

For Microsoft 365, that can mean:

• Verifying identity with MFA
• Checking device health
• Restricting administrator privileges
• Protecting sensitive data
• Monitoring unusual behaviour
• Requiring stronger controls for higher-risk actions

Your IT provider should turn these principles into practical policies suited to your organisation rather than applying a rigid set of controls with no consideration for how people work.

Organise SharePoint Properly

SharePoint can become an excellent document-management and collaboration platform—or a confusing collection of abandoned sites and duplicated files.

An IT company can improve it by designing:

• Clear site structures
• Department and project sites
• Consistent permissions
• Document libraries
• Metadata and naming standards
• Ownership responsibilities
• Retention rules
• Archive processes
• External-sharing controls

Microsoft describes information architecture as the way content is organised and labelled so that people can find information and get work done.

A well-designed structure helps staff find current documents, reduces duplication and makes future governance easier.

Use OneDrive for Personal Work, SharePoint for Team Work

One common Microsoft 365 problem is confusion between OneDrive and SharePoint.

A simple rule is:

• OneDrive is primarily for an individual’s working files.
• SharePoint is for documents that belong to a team, department or organisation.

When important team documents remain in an employee’s personal OneDrive, access can become difficult when that employee is absent or leaves.

Your IT company can help migrate shared information into properly managed SharePoint libraries while leaving personal drafts and working documents in OneDrive.

Microsoft notes that SharePoint and OneDrive support co-authoring and provide options for building secure, productive collaboration environments inside and outside the organisation.

Control External Sharing

Microsoft 365 makes it easy to share documents with customers, suppliers and contractors.

That convenience must be balanced with control.

Your provider should review:

• Anonymous links
• Guest access
• Link expiry
• Default sharing settings
• Download restrictions
• Sensitive-file sharing
• Inactive guests
• Site-level permissions
• OneDrive sharing

Not every external collaboration should require an email attachment.

Secure sharing through SharePoint or OneDrive can provide better version control and allow access to be removed later.

However, sharing should use the minimum access necessary and should not remain open indefinitely.

Apply Sensitivity Labels

Sensitivity labels help classify and protect information.

Examples might include:

• Public
• Internal
• Confidential
• Highly confidential
• Financial
• Personal data

Depending on configuration and licensing, labels can apply protections such as:

• Encryption
• Access restrictions
• Watermarks
• Header and footer markings
• Sharing limitations

Labels should match real business requirements.

A system containing dozens of unclear classifications will frustrate users and be applied inconsistently.

Your IT company can design a simple labelling structure, test it and train staff on when each label should be used.

Use Data Loss Prevention

Data Loss Prevention policies can detect and control the movement of sensitive information.

They may identify content such as:

• Financial information
• Personal data
• Health information
• Customer records
• Custom business identifiers

A policy might:

• Warn the user
• Require justification
• Block external sharing
• Notify a compliance team
• Record the event

Data Loss Prevention should support employees rather than surprise them.

Your IT provider should test policies carefully and introduce user prompts that explain what happened and how to complete legitimate work securely.

Review Retention and Deletion

Keeping everything forever creates cost, legal exposure and search problems.

Deleting everything too quickly creates operational and compliance risk.

Microsoft 365 retention policies can help manage information across services such as:

• Exchange
• SharePoint
• OneDrive
• Teams

An IT company should work with the organisation’s legal or compliance advisers to define:

• What must be retained
• For how long
• What can be deleted
• Whether records need special protection
• Who can approve disposal
• How departed-user data is handled

Retention is a business-policy decision supported by technology, not a technical setting that IT should invent alone.

Improve Teams Governance

Teams can improve collaboration but quickly become disorganised.

Common problems include:

• Duplicate teams
• Unclear ownership
• Abandoned channels
• Important decisions buried in chat
• Excessive notifications
• Uncontrolled guest access
• Inconsistent file storage

Your IT company can introduce:

• Naming conventions
• Creation policies
• Minimum owner requirements
• Guest-access standards
• Archived-team procedures
• Approved apps
• Templates
• Lifecycle reviews

Teams should support structured work, not become another place employees must search.

Make Meetings More Productive

Microsoft Teams can reduce time wasted before, during and after meetings.

A well-configured environment can support:

• Consistent meeting policies
• Approved recording settings
• Transcription where appropriate
• Meeting notes
• Shared agendas
• Proper room equipment
• External-participant controls
• Background and branding policies

Productivity depends partly on technical quality.

Poor headsets, weak Wi-Fi and unsuitable meeting-room equipment can undermine even well-designed software.

Your IT provider should consider the complete meeting experience, not just whether the Teams licence is active.

Use Planner and To Do for Visible Work

Tasks are often hidden in email, private notes and chat messages.

Microsoft Planner, To Do and Teams can provide a clearer view of:

• Responsibility
• Deadlines
• Progress
• Priorities
• Project work
• Personal tasks

An IT company can help choose a consistent approach so that employees are not expected to manage the same task across several disconnected systems.

The objective is not to deploy every Microsoft application. It is to agree where different types of work should live.

Automate Repetitive Processes

Power Automate can remove repetitive manual steps.

Examples include:

• Sending approval requests
• Saving email attachments
• Alerting staff about new forms
• Creating tasks from submissions
• Moving files after approval
• Notifying teams about important changes
• Escalating overdue requests
• Collecting onboarding information

Automation can save significant time, but poorly designed flows may create hidden dependencies.

Your IT company should document:

• Who owns each flow
• Which account runs it
• What systems it accesses
• What happens when it fails
• How it is monitored
• Who can update it

Avoid building important business automation under one employee’s personal account without continuity planning.

Improve Employee Onboarding

Microsoft 365 can support a more consistent onboarding process.

Before a new starter arrives, your IT company can prepare:

• User account
• Licence
• Email address
• Teams membership
• SharePoint access
• Security groups
• Managed device
• Required applications
• MFA registration
• Training materials

Automated workflows can notify departments and make sure important steps are not missed.

The same process should work in reverse when someone leaves.

Secure Offboarding

A rushed offboarding process can leave:

• Active accounts
• Accessible company data
• Shared passwords
• Unrevoked sessions
• Owned Teams and SharePoint sites
• Unmanaged forwarding rules
• Licensed but unused accounts

Your IT company should have a documented process to:

• Block sign-in
• Revoke sessions
• Reset credentials
• Preserve required data
• Transfer file and mailbox access
• Remove group membership
• Review forwarding
• Recover devices
• Remove licences at the correct time
• Delete information according to policy

This protects both security and business continuity.

Optimise Microsoft 365 Licences

Businesses often purchase licences once and never revisit them.

This can lead to:

• Unused licences
• Employees on the wrong plan
• Duplicate third-party tools
• Security features left unlicensed
• Expensive add-ons assigned to everyone
• Former employees still consuming licences

Microsoft 365 usage reports can help administrators monitor activity, licence use and adoption trends.

An IT company can compare:

• What each user needs
• What each licence includes
• Which services are actually used
• Which security controls require additional licensing
• Whether another product is duplicating Microsoft functionality

The cheapest licence is not always the best value, and the most expensive licence is not necessary for every employee.

Use Adoption Score and Usage Reports

Deploying a tool does not mean employees are using it effectively.

Microsoft Adoption Score can provide insights into how people use Microsoft 365 and where working practices may be improved. Microsoft states that the report is available through the Microsoft 365 admin centre and includes privacy controls intended to make insights actionable without compromising user trust.

Usage reports can also show activity across services such as Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint.

Your IT company can use these insights to identify:

• Underused tools
• Training needs
• Licence waste
• Collaboration gaps
• Teams with low activity
• Departments still relying heavily on attachments
• Users who may need additional support

The data should be used to improve working practices—not to create intrusive employee-surveillance programmes.

Introduce Microsoft 365 Copilot Carefully

Microsoft 365 Copilot can work across applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, using Microsoft Graph and organisational data to provide AI-assisted productivity features.

Potential uses include:

• Drafting documents
• Summarising meetings
• Preparing email responses
• Analysing information
• Creating presentations
• Finding content
• Producing first drafts
• Summarising long conversations

However, Copilot should not be deployed simply because it is available.

A responsible rollout includes:

• Clear business use cases
• Licence planning
• User training
• Pilot groups
• Data-governance review
• Oversharing checks
• Usage monitoring
• Human review of outputs

Prepare Your Data Before Copilot

Copilot respects existing Microsoft 365 permissions.

That means poorly governed permissions can become more visible when users can ask AI to search and summarise the information they already have access to.

Microsoft recommends preparing SharePoint and OneDrive content by reviewing permissions, managing content lifecycles and reducing accidental oversharing.

Before wider Copilot adoption, your IT company should review:

• Public and organisation-wide sites
• Old sharing links
• Over-permissioned document libraries
• Inactive sites
• Unclear ownership
• Sensitive information
• Duplicate and outdated content

Better information governance improves both security and the quality of Copilot’s responses.

Train Employees on Practical Microsoft 365 Use

Technology becomes productive when employees know how to use it.

Training should be relevant to actual roles.

Useful subjects might include:

• Sharing files without attachments
• Co-authoring documents
• Managing Teams notifications
• Scheduling effective meetings
• Recovering OneDrive files
• Identifying phishing
• Reporting suspicious messages
• Using sensitivity labels
• Creating secure sharing links
• Using Copilot responsibly
• Managing tasks with Planner and To Do

Short, role-specific sessions are often more effective than one long generic course.

A finance team, sales team and leadership team may all use Microsoft 365 differently.

Reduce Notification Overload

Microsoft 365 can generate a constant stream of:

• Email alerts
• Teams messages
• Mentions
• Meeting reminders
• Planner updates
• SharePoint notifications

Your IT provider can help define sensible defaults and train users to manage:

• Teams channel notifications
• Focus time
• Email rules
• Priority contacts
• Meeting alerts
• Mobile notifications

Productivity is not improved merely by increasing the number of communication channels.

The goal is to make important information easier to notice.

Improve Search and Information Discovery

Employees lose time when they cannot find the correct document.

Common causes include:

• Poor file names
• Duplicate copies
• Unclear SharePoint structure
• Excessive email attachments
• Inconsistent permissions
• Abandoned Teams
• Files stored under former employees

An IT company can improve search by introducing:

• Standard naming
• Clear ownership
• Metadata
• Controlled document libraries
• Archive processes
• Appropriate permissions
• Staff guidance

Good information management improves security, productivity and Copilot readiness at the same time.

Configure Reliable Backups

Microsoft 365 provides resilience and retention capabilities, but businesses should still consider their recovery requirements.

Questions include:

• How quickly must deleted data be recovered?
• How long must information be retained?
• What happens after malicious deletion?
• How are ransomware incidents handled?
• Can a user recover an older version?
• Does the organisation need an independent backup?

An IT company can evaluate whether native recovery features meet the business requirement or whether a separate Microsoft 365 backup service is appropriate.

The backup system should be monitored and restore procedures tested.

Monitor the Environment Continuously

Security and productivity decline when Microsoft 365 is configured once and then ignored.

Ongoing management should include:

• Reviewing security alerts
• Investigating risky sign-ins
• Monitoring device compliance
• Checking failed backups
• Reviewing administrator changes
• Removing inactive guests
• Checking licence use
• Reviewing external sharing
• Monitoring service health
• Tracking Secure Score
• Reviewing adoption reports
• Testing recovery procedures

Microsoft 365 changes continuously.

New features are introduced, threats evolve and employees join, leave or change roles. The configuration needs to evolve with the organisation.

Create Clear Ownership

Every important Microsoft 365 area should have an owner.

Examples include:

• Teams and SharePoint sites
• Security incidents
• Compliance policies
• Licence management
• Power Automate flows
• Copilot agents
• Backup recovery
• Guest access
• Data-retention decisions

Without ownership, unused sites remain open, flows break when employees leave and security alerts go unanswered.

Your IT company can provide technical ownership while making sure the business retains responsibility for decisions involving data, risk and working practices.

What a Good Microsoft 365 Improvement Plan Looks Like

A practical improvement plan might be divided into four stages.

Stage 1: Protect identities

• Enable MFA
• Reduce administrator privileges
• Block legacy authentication
• Configure Conditional Access
• Review risky sign-ins

Stage 2: Protect devices and data

• Deploy Intune
• Enable device compliance
• Configure Defender
• Review external sharing
• Introduce labels and Data Loss Prevention

Stage 3: Improve collaboration

• Organise SharePoint
• Standardise Teams
• Clarify OneDrive use
• Improve meeting and task processes
• Introduce automation

Stage 4: Measure and optimise

• Review licences
• Monitor Secure Score
• Use adoption and usage reports
• Train employees
• Prepare carefully for Copilot
• Continue regular governance reviews

This approach prevents the organisation from attempting too many disruptive changes at once.

Microsoft 365 Should Be Managed, Not Merely Licensed

Microsoft 365 can become the centre of a secure, productive modern workplace.

However, that outcome requires more than creating accounts and installing Office.

Your IT company should help you:

• Protect identities
• Manage devices
• Secure email
• Govern data
• Improve collaboration
• Automate repetitive work
• Reduce licence waste
• Train employees
• Prepare safely for AI
• Monitor the platform continuously

The best Microsoft 365 environment is not the one with the largest number of enabled features. It is the one where security controls match the organisation’s risk and employees can complete their work without unnecessary complexity.

Hamilton Group can assess, secure and optimise your Microsoft 365 environment, from Entra ID, Defender and Intune to Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, automation and Copilot readiness.

Call 0330 043 0069 or visit hgmssp.com to speak with one of our Microsoft 365 experts.