After the Ink Dries: The Complete 2026 Enterprise Guide to Transitioning Smoothly to Your New Microsoft EA

The first action after signing is verifying that the Microsoft systems — the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, Azure portal, Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC), and any applicable CSP portals — accurately reflect what was negotiated. Do not assume accuracy. Discrepancies between the signed agreement and what appears in Microsoft's systems are far more common than most organisations expect.

1. Licence Counts and SKUs:

Verify that every licence type and quantity matches the signed agreement. Check Microsoft 365 E3, E5, F1, and F3 seat counts, Windows and Office standalone licences (if separate from M365), Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS) entitlements, any add-on licences (Teams Phone, Copilot, Power Platform, Defender for Endpoint, etc.), and on-premises server licences (Windows Server, SQL Server, System Center). Common errors include incorrect SKU mappings (e.g., E3 showing where E5 was purchased), missing add-on licences that were negotiated as part of the deal, and incorrect quantity counts — especially when the renewal involved downsizing or SKU changes.

2. Pricing and Discounts:

Verify that negotiated pricing is correctly applied. Pull the first invoice or billing statement and compare line by line against the signed pricing schedule. Check the per-unit rate for each licence SKU, Azure commitment discount (MACC) terms and credit availability, any promotional or one-time credits that should be applied, and payment schedule alignment (annual, quarterly, or monthly billing as agreed). If you negotiated a 15% discount on M365 E5 and the invoice shows list price, that is an immediate $50–$200 per seat per year overcharge that compounds across thousands of users.

3. Azure Commitments and Credits:

If the EA includes a Microsoft Azure Commitment (MACC), verify that the commitment amount is correctly recorded, the commitment period aligns with the EA term, any pre-paid credits are visible in the Azure Cost Management portal, and eligible services are correctly mapped to the commitment. Azure commitment errors are particularly costly because they affect consumption billing for the entire term.

4. Software Assurance Benefits:

Confirm that Software Assurance (SA) benefits are activated and accessible. SA includes valuable entitlements that organisations frequently fail to claim: training vouchers, deployment planning services, Azure Hybrid Benefit rights, licence mobility across server farms, disaster recovery rights, and step-up licence rights. Every unclaimed SA benefit is a negotiated entitlement going to waste.

A new EA often changes licence types, quantities, entitlements, and cost allocations across the organisation. If the teams responsible for implementing these changes are not informed promptly and clearly, the new agreement will not deliver its intended value.

1. The Executive Briefing (Week 1):

Provide a concise executive summary to CIO, CFO, and CISO covering: key changes from the previous EA (what was added, removed, or changed), financial summary (new annual cost vs previous, savings achieved, budget impact), critical timelines (true-up dates, anniversary dates, renewal date), and any commitments made to Microsoft that require organisational action (e.g., Azure consumption commitments, Copilot deployment targets).

2. IT Operations Briefing (Week 1–2):

Provide detailed guidance to IT administrators who will implement the licence changes. This includes user licence assignments — specify exactly which users move between SKUs (e.g., 1,000 users from E5 to E3), the timeline for reassignment, and any feature impacts users will experience. New service provisioning — detail every new product or capability (Teams Phone, Copilot, Power Platform, Defender, etc.) with the team responsible for deployment. Deprovisioning — identify any services or capabilities being removed and the timeline for transition.

3. Finance and Procurement Briefing (Week 1–2):

Update finance and procurement on the new cost structure including annual payment schedule and amounts, cost allocation to business units or departments, true-up budget reserves (set aside budget for any true-up obligations that may arise), and Azure consumption budget allocations. Ensure finance understands the difference between committed spend (fixed EA subscription) and variable spend (Azure consumption) and how each is invoiced.

4. The Change Impact Table:

Create and distribute a single reference document summarising all changes and responsibilities.

Every product, service, or capability negotiated into the EA represents a cost commitment. If it is not deployed and adopted, it becomes shelfware — a pure financial loss. The deployment of new entitlements should begin immediately after agreement verification, with structured timelines and accountable owners.

1. Prioritise by Business Impact and Complexity:

Not all new entitlements should be deployed simultaneously. Prioritise based on two dimensions: business value (how much impact will this service deliver?) and deployment complexity (how long will it take to roll out?). Quick wins (high value, low complexity) should be deployed within weeks — examples include assigning Copilot licences to power users, activating Defender for Endpoint on unprotected devices, and enabling Power Automate for known automation use cases. Strategic deployments (high value, high complexity) should have structured project plans — examples include Teams Phone rollout replacing legacy PBX, Azure migration of on-premise workloads against MACC commitment, and Power Platform citizen developer programme. Lower-priority items (lower value or very high complexity) can be scheduled for later in the term but should not be forgotten.

2. The Deployment Matrix:

3. Track Adoption, Not Just Deployment:

Deployment (making the service available) is not the same as adoption (people actually using it). Track active usage metrics for each new entitlement: Copilot — weekly active users and feature utilisation, Defender — devices protected vs total device estate, Teams Phone — active calling users vs assigned licences, Power Platform — apps created, flows active, monthly active users. If deployment is complete but adoption is low, invest in training, change management, and executive communication. A service that is deployed but unused is still shelfware.

A new EA frequently overlaps with existing subscriptions, standalone licences, and third-party tools that the EA now makes redundant. Identifying and eliminating these overlaps is the fastest path to capturing real savings after signing — and one of the most commonly missed opportunities.

1. Common Sources of Redundant Spend:

CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) subscriptions: many organisations have standalone M365 or Azure subscriptions purchased through CSP resellers outside the EA. After the EA is active, these CSP subscriptions may cover the same users or services — creating double billing. Individual or departmental subscriptions: business units sometimes purchase their own M365, Power BI, or Azure subscriptions outside central procurement. These shadow IT subscriptions often continue billing after the EA covers the same capabilities. Third-party tools replaced by EA entitlements: the EA may include capabilities that overlap with third-party tools — for example, Defender for Endpoint replacing a third-party endpoint protection platform, Teams Phone replacing a third-party PBX or UCaaS, Power Automate replacing a third-party workflow tool, or Purview replacing a third-party data governance platform. Legacy on-premise licences with active SA: if the EA includes cloud equivalents that fully replace on-premise software, the on-premise Software Assurance may no longer be needed.

2. The Redundancy Audit Process:

Conduct a systematic review within the first 30 days. Pull a complete list of all Microsoft subscriptions across every procurement channel (EA, CSP, MOSP, direct). Map each subscription to the corresponding EA entitlement. Identify overlaps where the same user or service is covered by both the EA and another subscription. Inventory all third-party tools that overlap with EA entitlements. Create a retirement plan with specific cancellation dates and responsible owners.

The total redundant spend in a typical enterprise EA transition ranges from $100K to $1M+ annually. Capturing even half of this in the first 90 days generates immediate ROI from the EA renewal process.

Azure consumption is the most financially unpredictable component of a Microsoft EA. Unlike fixed licence subscriptions, Azure spend is usage-based and can escalate rapidly without governance. If your EA includes a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), managing consumption to meet — but not dramatically exceed — the commitment is critical.

1. MACC Management:

A MACC is a financial commitment to consume a minimum amount of Azure services over the EA term. Under-consuming means you still pay the committed amount (wasted spend). Over-consuming at rates above your negotiated commitment pricing can be expensive. The goal is to consume 100–105% of the MACC — enough to fulfil the commitment without significant overage. Set up consumption tracking from day one: configure Azure Cost Management with budgets and alerts at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 90% of annual MACC. Review consumption monthly in the first quarter to establish baseline patterns. Adjust workload placement and resource sizing to track toward full MACC utilisation.

2. Cost Optimisation Practices:

Azure cost optimisation should be continuous, not annual. Key practices include right-sizing VMs (most enterprises over-provision by 30–40%, paying for compute they do not use), reserved instances (1- or 3-year reservations for predictable workloads save 30–72% vs pay-as-you-go), auto-shutdown for dev/test environments (shutting down non-production environments outside business hours saves 50–70% on those workloads), storage tiering (move infrequently accessed data to cool or archive tiers — 50–80% cheaper than hot storage), and orphaned resource cleanup (unattached disks, unused public IPs, empty resource groups — typically 5–10% of total Azure spend).

3. FinOps Governance Framework:

Establish a FinOps governance model for Azure that includes cost allocation (tag every resource with cost center, owner, project, and environment), budget controls (set department and project budgets with alerts), monthly review (FinOps team reviews consumption, identifies anomalies, recommends optimisation), and quarterly executive review (present Azure cost trends, MACC tracking, and optimisation achievements to CIO/CFO).

The EA's annual true-up process requires organisations to reconcile their actual licence usage against their committed counts. Any usage above the committed quantity must be purchased at true-up. Without ongoing monitoring, true-up can deliver unpleasant financial surprises — sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in unexpected costs.

1. The True-Up Mechanics:

At each EA anniversary, the organisation must report its actual usage of all licenced products. If usage exceeds the committed counts, the excess must be purchased ("trued up") at the EA's agreed pricing for the remainder of the current term. If usage is below committed counts, you still pay for the committed quantity — there is no true-down in a standard EA (though this can be negotiated). The true-up is essentially a one-way ratchet: usage can go up, and you pay more; it cannot go down without contractual flexibility.

2. Monitoring Cadence:

Do not wait until the anniversary to discover your licence position. Establish a quarterly licence reconciliation process: pull current assignment data from M365 Admin Center, compare assigned licences to EA committed counts by SKU, identify any SKUs where assignments exceed commitments (overage risk) or are significantly below commitments (potential waste), and project forward to the anniversary to estimate the true-up impact. Run the reconciliation quarterly for the first two quarters, then monthly in the quarter leading up to the anniversary.

3. Managing Overage Risk:

If monitoring reveals that certain licence types are trending above committed counts, you have several options: reassign — move licences from users who are not actively using the features (e.g., E5 users who do not use E5-specific features can be downgraded to E3, freeing E5 seats for genuine E5 users), remove — identify and reclaim licences from departed employees, inactive accounts, or duplicate assignments, and plan — if the overage is genuine (the organisation has grown), budget for the true-up cost and consider whether a mid-term addition at the EA rate is cheaper than a true-up purchase.

4. Managing Under-Utilisation:

If monitoring reveals significant under-utilisation (e.g., you committed to 10,000 E3 licences but only 8,500 are assigned), investigate the cause. Some possibilities: new employees have not been assigned licences (fix by improving onboarding provisioning), licences are assigned but not actively used (drive adoption through training), or the original commitment was too high (document this for the next renewal to negotiate a lower commitment). Under-utilisation is still a cost — you are paying for 10,000 licences whether or not they are all used. The goal is 95%+ utilisation of committed counts.

Microsoft has the contractual right to audit EA customers, and audit activity has increased significantly in recent years. Maintaining audit readiness throughout the EA term — not scrambling to prepare when an audit is announced — protects the organisation from compliance findings, penalty exposure, and disruption.

1. Understanding Microsoft's Audit Rights:

The EA grants Microsoft the right to verify compliance, typically through a third-party auditor (often Deloitte, PwC, or similar). Audits can be triggered by any EA customer — there is no guaranteed safe period. However, audit risk increases with certain patterns: large or complex EA estates, significant Azure consumption, known under-licensing in specific product areas (server products are frequently audited), and organisations that have not conducted internal compliance reviews.

2. Maintaining Audit-Ready Documentation:

Keep the following documentation current and accessible at all times: complete inventory of all Microsoft software deployed (on-premise and cloud), licence entitlements by product and version (EA schedule, SA benefits, Azure Hybrid Benefit usage), server hardware inventory (for products licensed by core or processor), virtualisation environment documentation (host/guest mapping for server licensing), and Azure Hybrid Benefit usage records (which VMs are using AHB and under which licence entitlement).

3. Common Audit Exposure Areas:

The most frequent compliance findings in Microsoft audits involve Windows Server and SQL Server licensing in virtualised environments (the most complex and error-prone area of Microsoft licensing), Office/M365 installations on devices outside the EA scope (personal devices, contractor machines), Azure Hybrid Benefit usage without valid underlying SA entitlements, multiplexing scenarios (third-party systems accessing SQL Server or SharePoint on behalf of unlicensed users), and developer tools (Visual Studio) deployed beyond licensed developer counts.

4. Proactive Compliance Reviews:

Conduct an internal compliance review every 12 months using a Software Asset Management (SAM) tool or manual inventory. Focus on the high-risk areas above. Identify and remediate any gaps before an external audit finds them. The cost of proactive remediation (purchasing additional licences at EA pricing) is always lower than the cost of reactive remediation during an audit (which may involve penalty pricing, back-billing, and negotiation from a position of weakness).

The Microsoft account relationship after EA signing should shift from adversarial negotiation to collaborative value delivery. But this does not mean becoming passive — it means strategically engaging Microsoft to extract maximum value from the partnership while maintaining the leverage you will need at the next renewal.

1. The Post-Signing Reset Meeting (Month 1):

Schedule a formal meeting with your Microsoft account team within the first month after signing. The agenda should include confirmation of all negotiated commitments (training, migration support, technical resources, business reviews), agreement on a structured engagement cadence (quarterly business reviews are standard and valuable), discussion of adoption and deployment support available through Microsoft's Customer Success programmes, and alignment on success metrics that Microsoft will track (adoption rates, satisfaction scores, workload migration).

2. Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR):

Establish quarterly business reviews as a standing engagement. Use QBRs to review deployment progress and adoption metrics, discuss roadmap items and upcoming Microsoft product changes, address any service issues or feature requests, and explore new capabilities that might benefit the organisation. QBRs serve a dual purpose: they ensure Microsoft remains invested in your success (which improves the working relationship), and they create a documented record of engagement that strengthens your position at the next renewal.

3. Hold Microsoft Accountable for Commitments:

During negotiation, Microsoft often makes commitments — training credits, migration assistance, dedicated technical resources, FastTrack onboarding support. Document every commitment in the contract or a side letter. Track delivery against each commitment. If Microsoft fails to deliver on a commitment, raise it promptly and escalate through the account team. Undelivered commitments become powerful negotiation leverage at renewal — but only if they are documented and tracked.

4. Build the Next Renewal Data Set:

From day one of the new EA, begin building the data foundation for the next renewal negotiation. This includes monthly licence utilisation data (actual usage vs committed counts, by SKU), Azure consumption trends and cost optimisation results, adoption success metrics for new services (proving ROI), any service issues, outages, or unmet commitments (documented), and competitive intelligence (alternative products evaluated, proof-of-concept results). This data set, accumulated over 3 years, transforms the next renewal from a reactive scramble into a data-driven negotiation where you control the narrative.

This consolidated checklist provides the step-by-step framework for capturing the full value of your new Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.

Organisations that execute a disciplined post-renewal transition consistently capture 10–25% more value from their EA compared to those that treat signing as the finish line. The savings come from eliminating redundant spend, deploying new entitlements for maximum adoption, preventing true-up surprises through continuous monitoring, maintaining audit readiness, and building the data foundation that transforms the next renewal into a negotiation they control.

For enterprises implementing new Microsoft Enterprise Agreements, optimising existing EA investments, or preparing for upcoming renewals, Redress Compliance provides independent advisory with deep expertise in Microsoft's commercial models, licensing mechanics, and the post-renewal execution practices that turn negotiated value into realised savings.