I am sure by now that you are all aware that there are changes on the way from Microsoft that effect the way that you are tied into the licences that you use and the charges for these licences. We wanted to break these changes down for you as much as possible so that you can judge how this will affect how you purchase your licences from us.

Microsoft NCE (Microsoft New Commerce Experience) was initially brought to our attention in the 2nd half of 2021. The biggest change for customers will be that you will be ‘tied’ into your Microsoft licencing for a 12-month period. Whilst this has always been in the small print of your licence purchase, it has not been enforced, allowing customers to add and drop off licences as and when required. There are still flexible options available to customers where-by licences are purchased on a month-to-month basis, this option comes with a price increase which at this time we understand will be 4%-20%.

One of the most important points to make is that you can add to your licencing suite at any time, however if you want to remove licence products you will continue to be billed for them until the 12-month contract comes to an end. However, licences can be re-assigned from a leaver to a joiner without taking out a new contract.

What does this mean for you? If you have a fairly static number of employees NCE will have very little impact, you can continue to pay on a monthly basis for your licencing. If the number of employees that you have tends to vary on a regular basis, then there are several options available to you. In this instance we would suggest that you opt for a 12-month contract, paid monthly, on 80%-90% of your licences, with the remaining 10%-20% kept on the slightly more expensive month-to-month option. This gives you the flexibility to reduce your licence count if needed, whilst keeping licence costs as low as possible.

In addition to the enforced contract period Microsoft have also announced that there will be a price increase to 6 products within the M365 suite from 1st March 2022, these products are:
* Microsoft 365 Business Basic
* Microsoft 365 Business Premium
* Office 365 E1
* Office 365 E3
* Office 365 E5
* Microsoft 365 E3At the time of writing this we do not have the £ cost increase, although we are expecting to receive these in the next couple of weeks. Going by the new $ costings we estimate that the increase will be in the 15%-20% region. At this time Microsoft are offering a promotion to encourage customers to move into the NCE, within this promotion you can receive 20% off monthly licencing subscriptions and 15% off annual licence subscriptions, thus for the next 12 months your licencing costs would remain almost the same.

From 10th March all new customers will only be able to join via the NCE program, however existing customers will be able to renew (providing their renewal is due) onto the existing legacy program for another 12 months, giving them the level of flexibility that they are currently enjoying for another 12 months. From 1st July if you renew your subscriptions, you will automatically be added to the NCE program.

Whilst we know that this is a lot of information to take in, we are by your side every step of the way. Please contact us to discuss what your options are, and which route would be the most cost effective for your business.