Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Microsoft 365 Business Technical Advisor

🎯 Role Definition

The Microsoft 365 Business Technical Advisor is a customer-facing, technical consultant and solution architect responsible for advising enterprise and mid-market customers on Microsoft 365 strategy, architecture, migration, security and adoption. This role blends pre-sales scoping and technical leadership with hands-on implementation guidance, tenant design, governance, and change management to ensure successful cloud-first workplace transformations. The advisor serves as the trusted technical lead for Microsoft 365, driving secure, scalable, cost-effective solutions across Azure AD, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Intune and the M365 security & compliance stack.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Systems Administrator with Microsoft 365/Exchange/AD experience
Cloud Engineer or Modern Workplace Engineer (M365/Intune)
Pre-Sales Technical Consultant focused on Microsoft technologies

Advancement To:

Microsoft 365 Practice Lead / Cloud Practice Architect
Principal Cloud Consultant / Enterprise Architect (SaaS and Microsoft)
Head of Modern Workplace / Director of Cloud & Collaboration

Lateral Moves:

Security & Compliance Architect (Microsoft Defender/Compliance Center)
Teams Voice Architect / UC Specialist
Azure Identity & Access Management (IAM) Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Serve as the primary technical advisor for Microsoft 365 engagements, guiding customers through architecture decisions, tenant design, licensing optimization, and phased migration strategies that balance security, performance, and cost.
Develop end-to-end migration plans and runbooks for moving mailboxes and data from on-premises Exchange, Lotus Notes, Google Workspace or legacy cloud tenants to Exchange Online, including coexistence, cutover and rollback procedures.
Design and implement identity and access management solutions using Azure AD, Azure AD Connect, Conditional Access, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Pass-through Authentication and Single Sign-On (SSO) to enforce secure access and least-privilege principles.
Lead Microsoft Teams design and adoption efforts: Teams architecture, voice/pstn integration, meeting and calling policies, Teams governance, security, and performance tuning for enterprise collaboration and telephony.
Architect and advise on SharePoint Online and OneDrive information architecture, hub sites, intranet design, content migration strategies, permissions models, and governance frameworks to support collaboration and content lifecycle.
Plan, configure and operationalize Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune) and Windows Autopilot for modern device management, conditional access for devices, application deployment, and compliance baselines across Windows, iOS and Android endpoints.
Implement Microsoft 365 security and compliance controls: Defender for Office 365, Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Purview (Data Loss Prevention, Sensitivity Labels, Information Protection), eDiscovery, Insider Risk Management and Compliance Manager assessments.
Conduct tenant health checks and environment assessments, identify security or performance risks, produce prioritized remediation roadmaps and estimate effort and costs for remediation workstreams.
Run technical workshops, discovery sessions, and Microsoft FastTrack-style engagements to align business objectives, technical constraints and measurable success criteria for M365 transformations.
Lead Proof-of-Concepts (PoCs) and pilots, configure demonstration tenants, and provide evidence of technical feasibility, performance and business outcomes for proposed M365 solutions.
Author technical design documents, architecture diagrams, statements of work (SOWs), runbooks, cutover plans, risk registers and detailed migration schedules for customer and internal stakeholders.
Provide advanced troubleshooting and root cause analysis for production incidents across Microsoft 365 services using Microsoft 365 admin center, Security & Compliance portals, logs, and telemetry (Azure Monitor, ATP alerts, service health).
Automate repetitive tasks and operational processes using PowerShell, Microsoft Graph API, Power Automate and CI/CD where applicable to improve deployment consistency and reduce manual effort during large migrations and tenant builds.
Ensure tenant-to-tenant migration and consolidation strategies are robust: account mapping, data transfer approaches, licensing transition, coexistence periods and user communication plans.
Advise customers on connectivity, network configuration and QoS for optimal Teams and AV experience — including firewall rules, port requirements, bandwidth planning and ExpressRoute/S2S/VPN considerations.
Provide presales technical support: craft technical responses for RFPs, create demos, perform solution scoping, sizing, effort estimation and present technical value propositions to executive and technical stakeholders.
Collaborate with security, networking, identity and compliance teams (customer and internal) to integrate 3rd-party tools, on-prem systems and SaaS applications with M365 services while maintaining least privilege and compliance obligations.
Mentor and coach junior consultants and engineers on Microsoft 365 best practices, design patterns, migration techniques and troubleshooting methodologies to improve team delivery capability.
Drive user adoption and change management activities: develop training plans, create learning materials, deliver end-user and admin training sessions, and measure adoption metrics and feature usage to ensure realization of business value.
Maintain active relationships with Microsoft product and account teams to stay current on roadmap changes, feature releases, and leverage Microsoft support and FastTrack resources to accelerate customer outcomes.
Continuously assess licensing and SKU utilization, recommend optimization opportunities (bundling, feature usage) and support licensing renewals or transitions to maximize return on Microsoft 365 investments.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Maintain and update technical documentation, runbooks and knowledge base articles for managed M365 environments and common troubleshooting scenarios.
Participate in security incident response for M365-related incidents and coordinate remediation with engineering and customer teams.
Produce regular operational and executive-level reporting on system health, adoption KPIs, security posture and project milestones.
Evaluate and pilot new Microsoft 365 capabilities and partner integrations to recommend continuous improvement opportunities.
Provide on-call escalation support during major migrations and production incidents to ensure SLA adherence and timely resolution.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Deep hands-on experience with Microsoft 365 core services: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams (architecture, policies, migration, governance).
Identity & Access Management proficiency with Azure Active Directory: Azure AD Connect, Conditional Access, MFA, SSO, Privileged Identity Management (PIM) and B2B collaboration.
Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune) and Windows Autopilot: device enrollment, MDM/MAM policies, compliance policies and application deployment.
Microsoft 365 security & compliance expertise: Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Purview (DLP, sensitivity labels), eDiscovery, Compliance Center and Insider Risk Management.
Strong PowerShell scripting and automation skills for Exchange Online, Azure AD, SharePoint Online, Teams, and Intune management.
Experience with Microsoft Graph API, RESTful APIs and automation using Power Automate/PowerShell to integrate and extend M365 capabilities.
Tenant-to-tenant and on-premises to cloud migration experience using migration tooling (e.g., ShareGate, BitTitan MigrationWiz, Quest, native tools) and data migration planning.
Networking fundamentals for Teams: QoS, SIP trunking, firewall/NAT configuration, bandwidth sizing and troubleshooting real-time media quality.
Knowledge of Microsoft licensing models and SKU optimization for Microsoft 365 suites, E3/E5, Business Premium and add-on SKUs.
Familiarity with Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM), hybrid identity scenarios (ADFS, PTA), and hybrid Exchange coexistence patterns.
Experience with monitoring and telemetry tools (Microsoft 365 admin center, Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Service Health) and interpreting service diagnostics.
Practical knowledge of SharePoint migration planning, content restructuring, information architecture, metadata, search optimization and governance.
Experience delivering technical workshops, FastTrack-style engagements, and building acceptance criteria, success metrics and adoption plans.
Familiarity with Microsoft Teams Voice architecture, SBCs, direct routing, PSTN calling strategies and Teams telephony governance.

Soft Skills

Consultative, customer-facing communication: ability to translate technical trade-offs into business outcomes for executives and technical teams.
Strong presentation and workshop facilitation skills; comfortable running discovery sessions, technical deep-dives and executive briefings.
Proven project management and organization skills; able to produce realistic timelines, manage dependencies and communicate status.
Excellent stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration across security, networking, identity and application owners.
Problem-solving orientation with strong analytical thinking and ability to perform root cause analysis under pressure.
Coaching and mentoring skills to grow junior staff and transfer knowledge to customer IT teams.
Adaptability to rapidly changing product roadmaps and ability to learn and apply new Microsoft 365 capabilities quickly.
Customer-obsessed mindset with focus on adoption, user experience and measurable business value.
Strong written skills for producing technical documentation, SOWs, runbooks and customer-facing reports.
Time management and prioritization skills to balance presales, delivery, support and enablement activities.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred Education:

Microsoft certifications such as Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert, Microsoft 365 Certified: Teams Administrator Associate, Microsoft Certified: Security, Compliance and Identity Fundamentals or equivalent vendor certifications.
Advanced courses or certifications in cloud architecture, identity management or cybersecurity.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science / Software Engineering
Information Technology / Systems Administration
Cybersecurity / Information Assurance
Business Information Systems / IT Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 4–10+ years of IT experience with 3+ years focused on Microsoft 365, cloud collaboration, identity and security in enterprise or large-scale mid-market environments.

Preferred:

5+ years delivering Microsoft 365 migrations, tenant builds, and modern workplace projects in consultative or professional services settings.
Proven track record of customer-facing technical advisory, presales support, and successful adoption outcomes.
Hands-on experience with complex identity topologies (hybrid AD, Azure AD Connect, SSO), SCCM/Endpoint Configuration Manager, Intune and Teams telephony integrations.