Matt Scherocman, president of Interlink Cloud Advisors, a Cincinnati-based Microsoft partner, said the study’s findings are in line with what he’s seeing in the field. But he added that it’s important to note that cloud services free IT teams to focus on addressing those issues.

“Microsoft is putting out an impressive set of updates on a regular basis, but that doesn’t mean that a client will use that functionality,” he told IT Best of Breed. “And IT teams can focus on productivity, instead of just keeping systems, like on-premises email, up and running.”

Interlink customers that are focused on end-user change management, user adoption, and training are the ones seeing the highest returns on their cloud investments, Scherocman said.

Foos, of ZAG Technical Services, said partners that are experienced in executing cloud migrations should focus on educating and supporting clients during challenging transitions, Foos said.

“The success of a cloud migration project always comes down to starting off on the right foot,” Foos said. “Assessing needs through a comprehensive planning and design methodology is critical, and the most successful partners are always the ones that offer the most value up front.”

Wiedower, of New Signature, offered the analogy of someone walking into their garage and seeing a new set of tools.

“It’s a big win,” he said. “But without training, you’re not going to be able to use those tools to accomplish tasks in your house. And if you just try to pick them up and use them, you could end up causing some friction. What you need to do is to talk to someone who sees those tools every single day and can get your team focused on how they can help you.”

There will always be a need for partners to break down challenging business problems for business consumers, he said.

And it’s important to remember that Office 365 does allow organizations to speed up or slow down the pace of changes.

“For progressive firms, they may decide to get updates a month after they are released to the general consumer-facing public, and during that time you can identify evangelists inside your organization [who] can get the bits early,” Wiedower said.

“Those folks, armed with a partner, can then train the rest of the staff when new items are released,” he said.