Microsoft 365 is the productivity platform for the majority of Australian businesses — email, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and increasingly, the security and compliance layer that underpins an IT environment. Done right, it's transformative. Done wrong, it's expensive, chaotic and a significant security risk.
Microsoft 365 plans for Australian businesses
Microsoft 365 Business Basic (A$8.30/user/month)
Web and mobile Office apps only — no desktop versions. Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive. Suitable for businesses where staff work primarily on web apps or don't need full Office desktop applications.
Microsoft 365 Business Standard (A$17.20/user/month)
Full desktop Office apps — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook — plus Exchange, Teams, SharePoint. The most common plan for Australian SMBs. Suitable for any business where staff need desktop Office applications.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium (A$29.00/user/month)
Everything in Standard plus Microsoft Defender for Business, Intune device management, Azure AD Premium P1, and advanced compliance tools. The correct choice for any Australian business taking security seriously. We recommend Premium as the minimum for businesses with 10+ users or any regulatory requirement.
Critical Microsoft 365 security configuration for Australian businesses
Multi-factor authentication — non-negotiable
MFA must be enabled for all users, including administrators. Microsoft reports that MFA blocks 99.9% of account compromise attacks. Conditional Access policies (available in Business Premium) offer more granular control — location-based, device compliance, and risk-based MFA requirements.
Anti-phishing and anti-spam policies
Microsoft 365 Defender's anti-phishing policies must be configured — default settings are insufficient. Safe Links and Safe Attachments (both included in Defender for Business) should be enabled across all users.
Audit logging
Unified audit logging should be enabled for all Microsoft 365 tenants. This is required for incident investigation, compliance reporting and cyber insurance evidence. It is disabled by default in older tenants.
Common Microsoft 365 mistakes Australian businesses make
- MFA enabled for most users but not all — especially admins
- Legacy authentication protocols not blocked — a significant attack vector
- Global administrator accounts used for daily work — should be break-glass only
- Email auto-forwarding to external accounts not blocked
- No DLP policies configured for sensitive data
- SharePoint and OneDrive sharing settings too permissive
Migrating to Microsoft 365 from Google Workspace or on-premises Exchange
A Microsoft 365 migration for an Australian SMB (20–100 users) typically takes 2–4 weeks. The migration requires cutover planning to minimise downtime, mail flow configuration, user training and security baseline configuration after migration. Zero-email-downtime migrations are achievable with proper planning.
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