Almost every Perth business we talk to is either already on Microsoft 365, thinking about switching to it, or running a mix of on-premises Office and cloud tools that's gotten messy over time. If any of that sounds familiar, this guide is for you.
Microsoft 365 is genuinely excellent for small and medium businesses — but only if you pick the right plan, set it up correctly from day one and actually use more than just Outlook and Word. Most Perth SMBs are paying for features they've never opened. At the same time, they're missing security controls that could have stopped a breach.
This guide covers everything in plain English: what each plan includes, what Perth businesses in the real world actually use, the eight security settings you must turn on before anything else, and the most common migration mistakes that cause weeks of pain. No sales pitch. Just useful information.
Microsoft 365 and Office 365 are often used interchangeably. Microsoft rebranded Office 365 to Microsoft 365 in 2020 and added security and device management features across plans. This guide uses Microsoft 365 throughout, though you may still see "Office 365" in older invoices and Microsoft documentation.
Choosing the Right Microsoft 365 Plan for Your Perth Business
There are four business plans worth knowing about. Here's an honest breakdown of what each includes and which kind of Perth business it suits.
| Feature | Basic | Apps for Business | Standard | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUD/user/month (annual) | ~$8.80Online apps only | ~$13.50Desktop apps, no email | ~$18.10Most popular | ~$33.10Full security stack |
| Outlook / Business Email | ✔ | ✗ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Desktop Office Apps (Word, Excel, PPT) | ✗ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Microsoft Teams | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| OneDrive (1TB/user) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| SharePoint + Intune | ✗ | ✗ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Defender for Business (advanced) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✔ |
| Azure AD Premium P1 (Conditional Access) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✔ |
| Intune Device Management | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✔ |
| Max users | 300 | 300 | 300 | 300 |
Pricing is approximate AUD ex. GST at time of writing (April 2026, annual commitment). Prices change — confirm current pricing with your Microsoft partner or directly at microsoft.com/en-au.
Which plan should your Perth business choose?
- Business Basic suits very small teams who work primarily in a browser (Chrome, Edge) and don't need locally installed Office applications. Good for sole traders or businesses that only need email, Teams and cloud file storage.
- Apps for Business is an unusual one — it gives you the full desktop Office suite but no business email. It's mainly useful as a top-up licence for staff who need Word and Excel but already have email managed elsewhere. Rarely the right standalone choice.
- Business Standard is the right plan for the vast majority of Perth SMBs. You get everything: desktop Office apps, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive and a solid baseline of security. If you're choosing a plan for a 5–100 person Perth business and you're not sure where to start, start here.
- Business Premium is what industries with compliance obligations — legal, healthcare, finance — or any business handling sensitive data should seriously consider. The addition of Intune, Conditional Access and Defender for Business is worth the premium for the security posture it provides. This is also the plan recommended for full ASD Essential Eight alignment in a Microsoft 365 environment.
You don't have to buy the same plan for everyone. A Perth accounting firm might put its principals on Business Premium and junior staff on Business Standard. A construction business might put site managers on Standard and FIFO workers who only need mobile email on Basic. Talk to your IT provider about a mixed licence strategy — it can meaningfully reduce your monthly cost without compromising security for the roles that need it.
The Features Perth Businesses Actually Use (and Some They Should)
Based on what we see across Perth SMB environments every week, here's a realistic picture of Microsoft 365 adoption — and where businesses are leaving value on the table.
High Adoption — Most Perth Businesses Use These Well
- Outlook / Exchange Online — Email is the obvious one. Perth businesses have largely moved away from on-premises Exchange servers. Cloud-hosted email through Microsoft 365 means no more managing mail server hardware, better uptime and access from any device.
- OneDrive — Personal cloud storage is broadly adopted. Staff save documents to OneDrive instead of a local desktop. Where businesses often go wrong is not configuring Known Folder Move, which means some staff still save to their local C: drive and lose files when a laptop dies.
- Microsoft Teams (chat/calls) — Teams messaging and internal calls are now well established in Perth businesses. Video conferencing adoption accelerated after 2020 and has stayed high, including for FIFO and remote site communications across regional WA.
Low Adoption — Perth Businesses Are Missing These
- SharePoint as a shared file library — Many businesses store all shared files on an old network drive or NAS when SharePoint would give them the same access, from anywhere, with better version history and no single point of failure. Migration is not as hard as it looks.
- Teams as a phone system (Teams Phone) — With an additional calling plan or Teams Direct Routing through a local provider, Teams becomes a full business phone system. Perth businesses paying for a separate PBX and Microsoft 365 are often paying twice for overlapping capabilities.
- Microsoft Forms and Planner — Simple workflow tools that replace ad hoc spreadsheet-based processes. Forms handles client intake, equipment requests, staff surveys. Planner gives teams a basic task board without buying another tool.
- Microsoft Bookings — A free scheduling tool included in Business Standard and above. Perth service businesses (tradies, consultants, healthcare) use it to let clients book appointments directly from a webpage without back-and-forth emails.
- Microsoft Defender for Business (Basic/Standard) — Even without the full Premium plan, Microsoft 365 Business Standard includes Defender for Business. Most Perth businesses haven't touched the Defender portal. At minimum, turn on tamper protection, enable cloud-delivered protection and ensure threat and vulnerability management is scanning all devices.
The 8 Security Settings to Turn On Before Anything Else
When a new Microsoft 365 tenant is created, it is not secure by default. These are the eight settings we enable in every Perth client environment on day one. None of them cost extra on Business Standard or Premium — they're just turned off until you turn them on.
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication for Every User
Go to the Microsoft 365 admin centre → Active Users → Multi-factor authentication. Enable it for all users. For Business Premium tenants, use Conditional Access policies instead of per-user MFA — they're more flexible and can be configured to require MFA only when a sign-in looks risky (new device, unusual location, etc.). MFA is the single most effective security control available in Microsoft 365. Accounts without it are exposed.
Turn On Security Defaults (or Conditional Access Policies)
If you're on Business Basic or Standard and not using Conditional Access, enable Security Defaults in Azure AD. This enforces MFA at sign-in, blocks legacy authentication protocols (which bypass MFA entirely) and protects privileged accounts. Go to Azure Active Directory → Properties → Manage Security Defaults. On Business Premium, disable Security Defaults and replace with proper Conditional Access policies for more granular control.
Block Legacy Authentication Protocols
Older email protocols — SMTP AUTH, POP3, IMAP — do not support MFA. If they're enabled, an attacker with a stolen password can log in without needing the second factor. Unless you have a specific need (some multi-function printers use SMTP AUTH to scan-to-email), disable legacy authentication across your tenant. This one change eliminates a significant category of account takeover attacks.
Configure Safe Links and Safe Attachments in Defender
In the Microsoft 365 Defender portal, under Email & Collaboration → Policies, set up Safe Links (which re-scans URLs at click time) and Safe Attachments (which detonates suspicious attachments in a sandbox before delivery). These are included with Business Standard and above. Without them, a malicious link in an email that passed spam filtering can still reach your staff's inbox and execute at click time.
Configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC for Your Domain
These three DNS records work together to authenticate outbound email from your domain and tell receiving mail servers how to handle email that claims to be from you but isn't. SPF lists the servers authorised to send on your behalf. DKIM signs outbound mail cryptographically. DMARC tells recipients what to do (quarantine or reject) with mail that fails both. Without DMARC enforcement, criminals can send phishing emails that appear to come from your business domain — targeting your clients and suppliers.
Enable Microsoft 365 Audit Log
The audit log records admin and user activities — who logged in from where, what files were accessed, what email rules were created, what admin changes were made. It is essential for incident investigation and is a requirement under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme if you ever need to determine what an attacker accessed. It can be enabled in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal and should be the first thing turned on in any new tenant. Logs are only retained for 90 days on most plans — if you need longer, configure log export to Azure Storage or a SIEM.
Set Global Admin Account Separation
Your Global Administrator account should never be a regular user account that someone uses for day-to-day email and file access. Create a dedicated break-glass Global Admin account with a strong password, MFA and no licence assigned (so it's not used for anything else), and use Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to give IT staff only the permissions they need for their specific tasks. If a day-to-day user account is compromised, attackers who find Global Admin rights can lock you out of your entire Microsoft 365 environment.
Enable Microsoft 365 Backup or a Third-Party Cloud Backup
A common misconception: Microsoft 365 is not a backup solution. Microsoft guarantees uptime and infrastructure availability — not data recovery. If a user accidentally deletes their mailbox, a ransomware attack encrypts your SharePoint libraries, or a disgruntled employee deletes shared files, the default recycle bin periods (93 days for SharePoint, 30 days for mailboxes) may not be enough. Configure Microsoft 365 Backup (now generally available) or a third-party solution like Veeam for Microsoft 365 or Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud to protect Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams data with longer retention and faster restore capabilities.
Microsoft provides a free Secure Score in the Defender portal — a percentage that measures how many security recommendations you've implemented. Most new Perth tenants start at 20–30%. A well-configured Business Standard environment should reach 60–75%. Business Premium with full Conditional Access and Intune configuration can reach 80%+. It's a useful benchmark to track over time.
Migrating to Microsoft 365: Common Mistakes Perth Businesses Make
Whether you're coming from on-premises Exchange, a cheap hosted email provider, or Google Workspace, the migration process has specific failure points. Here's what goes wrong most often and how to avoid it.
Not Running a Pilot Migration First
Migrating all 40 mailboxes at once over a weekend is a recipe for a stressful Monday morning. Always migrate a small group of non-critical users first to validate DNS propagation, mail flow, calendar sync and mobile device connectivity before touching executives and client-facing staff. A staged migration also gives your team time to get familiar with the new environment.
Changing MX Records Before Mailboxes Are Ready
Switching your MX record — the DNS record that tells the internet where to deliver email for your domain — before the destination mailboxes are configured causes incoming email to bounce. Get mailboxes fully provisioned and tested first. During migration, run in a hybrid or coexistence state where both old and new environments receive mail. Cut over the MX record only when you're confident the migration is complete.
Forgetting Shared Mailboxes, Distribution Lists and Room Calendars
Individual user mailboxes are easy to remember. Shared mailboxes (info@, accounts@, reception@), distribution groups, resource calendars (meeting rooms, company vehicles) and public folders are often overlooked until someone notices they're missing after go-live. Audit every mail object in your current environment before starting migration, not after.
Not Reconfiguring Mobile Devices
Smartphones and tablets connected to the old mail environment need to be manually updated or re-enrolled to connect to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online. In a Business Premium environment with Intune, this can be managed centrally. In a Basic or Standard environment, plan to touch every mobile device — or communicate clearly to staff what steps they need to take themselves, and when.
Skipping Post-Migration Security Hardening
The migration itself is only half the job. Moving mailboxes doesn't configure SPF, DKIM, DMARC, Safe Links, MFA or any of the security settings in Section 3. Many Perth businesses go live on Microsoft 365 with a blank security configuration because the migration provider only migrated data and didn't touch the security posture. Make sure your IT provider — or ours — runs a post-migration security checklist before handover.
Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace: A Practical Perth SMB View
This question comes up in almost every conversation with a Perth business that hasn't committed to either platform. The short answer: both are excellent cloud productivity suites. The right choice depends on your existing tools, industry and team preferences — not on a features list comparison.
Choose Microsoft 365 if:
- Your team is already familiar with Word, Excel and PowerPoint and works with clients or suppliers who send .docx and .xlsx files daily — formatting compatibility is better with Microsoft-native apps.
- You operate in an industry with compliance requirements (legal, finance, healthcare) — Microsoft's compliance tools (Purview, DLP, eDiscovery) are more mature and better aligned to Australian regulatory frameworks.
- You need a full business phone system — Microsoft Teams Phone with Direct Routing is a better PBX replacement than Google Voice for Australian businesses.
- Your business uses Windows devices — Microsoft 365 with Intune is the native management stack for Windows, offering tighter integration than Google's MDM options.
Google Workspace may suit you better if:
- Your team is primarily mobile, works across many different devices, and values the simplicity of browser-based tools. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are genuinely excellent web-first applications.
- You're a smaller business with limited IT support and want a platform that's easier to self-manage. Google Workspace admin is less complex than the Microsoft 365 admin centre for basic tasks.
- You're a school or education institution — Google Workspace for Education is widely used in Australian schools and has deep integrations with classroom management tools.
Switching from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 (or vice versa) is entirely feasible for a Perth SMB, but it requires careful planning — particularly around migrating Google Drive content to SharePoint/OneDrive, calendar data and contacts. Allow 4–8 weeks for planning and execution for a 20–50 user migration. Managed ICT Solutions handles both directions.
Microsoft 365 Setup Checklist for Perth SMBs
If you've recently signed up or are about to, here is the priority order for getting set up properly:
- Add and verify your custom domain (e.g. yourcompany.com.au) in the Microsoft 365 admin centre.
- Create all user accounts and assign licences before migrating any data.
- Enable MFA for all users — do this before enabling the accounts or at the same time.
- Configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC records in your domain DNS (usually via GoDaddy, Crazy Domains or Cloudflare for Perth businesses).
- Set up Safe Links and Safe Attachments policies in the Defender portal.
- Enable the Audit Log in the Purview compliance portal.
- Configure OneDrive Known Folder Move via Group Policy or Intune to silently redirect Desktop, Documents and Pictures to OneDrive on all Windows devices.
- Migrate email (run pilot, then full migration, then cut over MX).
- Migrate shared files from network drives or NAS to SharePoint document libraries.
- Set up Microsoft 365 Backup or a third-party backup before your first full day of live operation.
- Run staff training — even a 30-minute walkthrough of Teams, OneDrive and Outlook on the new platform reduces support tickets in the first week.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Microsoft 365 plan is best for a small Perth business?
For most Perth businesses between 5 and 100 staff, Microsoft 365 Business Standard is the best starting point. It includes desktop Office apps, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive at a reasonable cost. Move to Business Premium if you have compliance requirements or want advanced security features like Intune device management and Conditional Access.
Is Microsoft 365 data stored in Australia?
Yes. Microsoft stores data for Australian tenants in its Australia East (New South Wales) and Australia Southeast (Victoria) data centres. For Perth businesses subject to the Australian Privacy Act or industry-specific compliance obligations (healthcare, legal, finance), this matters and Microsoft 365 meets Australian data residency requirements for core services including Exchange, SharePoint and Teams.
What is the difference between Microsoft 365 and Office 365?
Microsoft 365 is the rebrand and evolution of Office 365. It includes everything Office 365 had, plus additional security and device management capabilities depending on the plan. If your business is still on a plan labelled "Office 365," it's worth reviewing whether the equivalent Microsoft 365 plan offers better value — in some cases the pricing has also changed.
Can we keep our existing @company.com.au email addresses?
Yes. You add your existing domain to the Microsoft 365 tenant and all users keep their current email addresses. The migration process moves email from wherever it currently lives (on-premises Exchange, hosted email, Gmail) into Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, with the same addresses. Users don't need to notify contacts of an address change.
How long does a Microsoft 365 migration take for a Perth SMB?
For a business of 10–50 users migrating from a hosted email provider, a well-planned migration typically takes 2–4 weeks from start to full go-live, including pre-migration audit, tenant configuration, pilot migration, full migration and post-migration security hardening. Complex migrations from on-premises Exchange or Google Workspace take longer. Rushing the process is the primary cause of migration problems.
Ready to Set Up or Migrate to Microsoft 365?
Managed ICT Solutions is a local Perth Microsoft 365 partner. We handle everything — tenant setup, security hardening, email migration, SharePoint, Teams Phone and ongoing management — so your team gets the full benefit of Microsoft 365 from day one.
Get a Free Microsoft 365 Assessment Call (08) 9242 4511