Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes several capabilities that many organizations continue to purchase separately through third-party services.

Because these features are often overlooked, companies sometimes end up paying for tools that are already included in the Microsoft platform they are using.

A few examples illustrate this clearly.

Microsoft Information Protection

Business Premium includes Microsoft Information Protection through Microsoft Purview.

This capability allows organizations to apply security classifications to documents and emails.

You can think of it as placing digital security groups on files and messages so they remain protected no matter where they go.

For example, a document can be configured so that:

  • Only certain users can open it
  • Forwarding or copying is restricted
  • The file remains encrypted even if it leaves the organization

This allows security policies to travel with the data itself instead of relying only on network controls.

Built-In Email Archiving

Another feature included with Business Premium is Exchange Online Archiving.

Each user receives:

  • A 50 GB primary mailbox
  • A 1.5 TB archive mailbox

Many organizations currently use third-party email archiving services such as Barracuda or Mimecast to store long-term email history.

But Microsoft 365 already provides this capability.

Organizations can configure policies that automatically move emails into the archive based on:

  • Mailbox size
  • Email age
  • Retention policies

When users need to perform large searches across archived emails, they can simply use Outlook on the web, which searches the archive much faster than synchronizing massive mailboxes locally in the desktop Outlook client.

Universal Print

Microsoft 365 Business Premium also includes Universal Print, which eliminates the need for traditional print servers.

With Universal Print, printers are managed directly through the Microsoft cloud.

Users can simply select a printer and have it automatically connected to their device without relying on local print infrastructure.

For organizations with large printer environments, this removes the need to maintain dedicated print servers.

Litigation Hold and eDiscovery

Business Premium also includes litigation hold and eDiscovery capabilities.

These tools allow organizations to:

  • Preserve emails and documents for legal or compliance purposes
  • Perform large-scale searches across company data
  • Retrieve historical information during investigations or audits

In other Microsoft 365 subscriptions, these capabilities are often additional paid add-ons, but they are already included within the Business Premium license.

More Included Than Most Companies Realize

When organizations evaluate Microsoft 365 Business Premium purely as an email and Office application subscription, they often overlook the additional infrastructure and compliance capabilities included in the platform.

Features such as data protection, email archiving, compliance search, and cloud printing are already built into the environment.

For many companies, the real opportunity is not purchasing additional tools but fully utilizing the capabilities already included in their Microsoft 365 licenses.

Learn More

If you're evaluating how Microsoft Defender, Intune, and Entra ID work together to secure modern IT environments, you may want to review our overview of Microsoft 365 security architecture: https://www.xerillion.com/microsoft-365-it-security-modernization/?