How migrating from Google Workspace to the Microsoft 365 suite enabled a medtech company to establish a secure and scalable enterprise-wide collaboration environment without missing a beat in their everyday operations and reduce operating expenses by 50%.
Industry:
Healthcare, Technology
Enterprise Automation
Legacy Software Modernization
As companies expand, they often outgrow the tools and services they relied on in the early days of their existence. What once worked for a lean team of 20–30 employees can quickly become a bottleneck as headcount climbs past 100.
Our client, Neo Medical, is a medtech company that started with Google Workspace tools. At some point, they broadened their toolset with Microsoft products, namely, Entra ID (former Azure AD) as an identity and access management solution, and Office 365 package.
Still, most of their daily tasks, including drafting documents, preparing reports, and handling internal communication, remained heavily tied to Google Workspace, coupled with other SaaS tools, like Tresorit as a cloud storage and Skype for communication.
This setup had several drawbacks:
As the company grew and more of their clients expected enterprise-grade security and seamless data protection by default, the need for a unified, secure, and scalable IT environment became urgent. Though the idea had been on their radar for months, Microsoft’s February 2025 announcement to retire Skype within three months made it clear that it was time to act.
Neo Medical decided to move from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 and started looking for a tech partner who could migrate them from one suite to another with zero downtime. Even 10 minutes without access to email servers meant the client could potentially miss high-priority external emails. Having extensive experience in carrying out such migrations, Instinctools stepped in.
In this case, our business analyst played a crucial role in gathering and documenting all the nuanced requirements the client had. With such a precise approach, every crucial detail was factored in, preventing data loss, jerry-built integrations, security gaps, undisabled licenses, and performance issues in the new software ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the dev team automated the assessment of their current environment. They used MigrationWiz to scan and catalogue mailboxes, Drive shares, and Skype workspaces.
Choosing between a one-time switch and approaching things gradually, we opted for migrating in stages to ensure a smooth transition, catch and resolve potential hiccups in the bud, and minimize the employees’ resistance to change.
Since the client’s staff was already using Entra ID for identity and access management, we didn’t have to onboard their accounts and devices into MS365 systems and went straight to migrating data from one tool to the corresponding one in the Microsoft suite. Given that mail and calendar were vital for the client’s everyday operations, we decided to start with these systems and then take care of the secondary services.
To ensure zero downtime, our team started pre-staging migration activities while Google services were still live. Here’s how we handled the whole endeavor.
Two weeks before cut-over, we set up MigrationWiz to do a background sync and copy all Gmail messages, labels, user-created folders with filtering rules, and calendar events to Exchange Online. By doing this in advance, we had to copy only the most recent emails and last-minute calendar updates during the final switch, when we planned to fully transition from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365.
Four days before the final shift, we reduced the mail-exchange (MX) record’s time to live (TTL) from its default 3,600 seconds down to 300 seconds. This ensured that, during the final Friday-night switch, the change would spread almost instantly, with external mail servers learning the new delivery route within about 5 minutes instead of an hour.
By finishing 99% of the data migration beforehand, we minimized a coexistence phase where two inboxes and calendars must be monitored and protected simultaneously. This prevented downtime and significantly reduced the window for potential interception-based threats.
From Friday, 6 PM, with all users logged out, Google kept accepting new mail and instantly forwarded it to Exchange. All inbound messages landed in the new mailbox.
Simultaneously, Outlook began publishing free/busy information into Exchange, and Google Calendar was switched to “forward-only” mode to redirect any new calendar events sent over the weekend to Exchange Online.
On Monday next week, the client’s staff logged into a new environment with their existing sign-in data. Only this single “hello, Microsoft” moment greatly contributed to minimizing end users’ resistance to change.
We kept Gmail and Google Calendar in forward-only mode for four days after the cut-over. Any mail reply or meeting update sent from an old Google tab was automatically forwarded to Exchange Online, so conversations and invites flowed on without interruption.
Since Skype and Teams organize group communication differently (channel groups vs. private teams), we could only transfer contacts from one tool to another. As with other migration steps, we planned the final move for Friday evening, but started preparations in advance:
A week before the company-wide switch, we launched Teams in parallel mode and installed it on department managers’ laptops. These seven people became pilot users, gaining instant access to the new communication tool without having to download or set up anything themselves.
Five days before the final shift, we moved these seven pilot users to Teams-only mode so that they could create relevant core Teams and channels and add users from Entra ID. As a result, when the rest of the employees logged into the new tool, they were automatically added to all the necessary teams and channels, ready to start working without any setup delays.
At this stage, department managers had two systems running simultaneously, but this arrangement remained invisible to other employees still using Skype and had no impact on the ease of communication. For example, if C-level manager Alice sent a direct message to employee Bob, Bob saw a standard Skype pop-up. And if Bob sent the message, it appeared in Alece’s Teams client inside a special “Skype user” chat tab.
On Friday, at 6 PM, we moved the rest of the employees to a Teams-only mode and set Skype to read-only.
On Monday, staff logged into Teams with their existing credentials and kept working as usual. The only noticeable change was the ability to integrate third-party apps like HubSpot, Jira, Miro, etc., to Teams to streamline daily routines with simple automation. We whitelisted trusted applications to ensure the client stays on the safe side.
As with mail and calendar, we left Skype available only for data verification purposes for four days post-migration and disabled Skype licenses after this period.
Migration from Skype to Teams not only provided the client’s staff with a feature-rich communication tool, but also contributed to tighter access control and security. In the new environment, collaboration is structured around private teams only, with no public teams allowed. For example, a BizDev or a LeadGen team includes only the users who need to collaborate on those workflows. If someone needs access to another team, they must request permission from the team owner. Such an approach reduces the risk of data exposure and keeps sensitive information confined to appropriate circles.
Along with the shift from Skype to Teams, we transferred the client’s data from Tresorit to OneDrive using a similar approach. However, there were two cloud storage-specific requirements to keep in mind:
How did this shift elevate security? Previously, Tresorit’s file vault and the company’s device‐security controls worked in silos, and a user could still open or edit corporate files even if their laptop was out of compliance, say, running an unpatched OS. Now, with OneDrive, the client has a single entry checkpoint, when access to the company data is granted only after both multi-factor authentication and device-compliance checks are passed. If either gate fails, the files stay locked.
Besides ensuring a stress-free migration from one software suite to another, our best practice is to offer hands-on staff training. In the client’s case, our team:
Here’s how a lead-level stakeholder on the Neo Medical side describes the project’s flow and results:
The *instinctools team ensured a smooth and efficient migration with minimal disruption to our operations. We were particularly impressed by their high level of flexibility and ability to easily fit our specific needs. This was evident not only in their technical expertise and proactive problem-solving during the complex migration but also in their capacity to quickly find and mobilize resources for the ongoing IT support that followed.
Whether it’s moving from one collaboration platform to another, switching CRMs, or replacing spreadsheets with an advanced analytics tool, there’s always room to evolve for the sake of stronger security, more scalable workflows, and higher efficiency. Having a seasoned tech partner by your side can make the shift stress-free.
