Google Workspace or Microsoft 365: How to Pick the Right Platform, and Get the Most From the One You Use

For most regional and coastal businesses, the choice of productivity platform comes down to what makes sense at the time. It might be based on how the team prefers to work, what systems are already in place, or what feels easiest to get up and running. That’s how some businesses land on Microsoft 365, while others find Google Workspace suits them better.

Early on, both tend to do exactly what’s needed. The team gets set up, files are shared, emails run smoothly, and the platform becomes part of the day-to-day without much thought. The focus stays on running the business, not the tools behind it.

It’s only as things change over time that things start to shift. Teams grow, ways of working evolve, and what the business needs from its systems begins to look a little different. The platform is still there in the background, but it’s now supporting something more complex than it was at the start.

To make sure your systems can grow with the business, it helps to choose the right platform and make sure you’re getting the most out of it as your team and systems evolve.

How To Choose The Right Platform (And Why It Matters)

For small and medium businesses, the question of Google Workspace versus Microsoft 365 often comes up. Neither platform is a bad choice, but they do answer slightly different questions. 

Google Workspace often works well for teams that rely on real-time collaboration and spend most of their time in the browser. Microsoft 365 tends to suit businesses that want more structure across their systems, with desktop applications and tighter integration across the wider Microsoft environment. If you know how your business likes to operate day-to-day, the platform conversation tends to get much easier.

Google Workspace

Google Workspace tends to suit teams that spend most of their time working in the browser and collaborating in real time. The tools are designed to feel consistent across devices, so the experience is largely the same whether someone is working on a laptop, desktop, or phone.

In practice, that usually means:

• Documents, spreadsheets, and emails are easy to access and share
• Multiple people can work in the same file at the same time without friction
• Changes are saved automatically, without needing to manage versions
• Teams can move between devices without needing to think about where files are stored

For businesses that collaborate quickly and don’t need more complex desktop software, this approach often feels lighter and more intuitive to manage day to day.

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 grew out of a different world, with a desktop focus that existed well before they offered cloud services. Microsoft 365 tends to suit businesses that want more structure across their systems, particularly where desktop applications and deeper integration play a role in how work gets done.

Over time, it has expanded into a broader environment that connects communication, files, identity, and security into one platform, which is part of the reason it’s so widely used. According to Gartner, Microsoft 365 holds roughly 77% of the SaaS enterprise productivity market, which is why so many regional businesses default to it by the time they hit 50 seats.

In practice, that often looks like:

• Familiar desktop applications like Word, Excel, and Outlook
• Integration across Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive
• More control over how files, users, and devices are managed
• Access to a wider Microsoft ecosystem, including identity and device management

For businesses that need that level of structure, or are already working within Microsoft systems, it can provide a more connected environment as they grow.

What Actually Matters When You Are Choosing (Or Reviewing) Your Platform

There’s lots of articles comparing the features of each platform, but for a small professional services firm in Lismore, or a growing healthcare group in Byron Bay, it rarely comes down to one feature as the deciding factor. 

There are five main considerations that businesses should be thinking about when choosing the right fit for them: 

• Existing workflows: If your accountant lives in Excel, and your team passes Word documents around all day, moving to Google Workspace will create friction that outweighs any collaboration benefit. If your team works collaboratively in shared Google Docs, uses Gmail on mobile constantly, and rarely touches a desktop app, the reverse is true.
   
• Hardware reality: Microsoft 365 still runs better on Windows, particularly for Excel power users. Google Workspace is largely hardware-agnostic and tends to be smoother for Mac-heavy teams. If your office is mixed, both platforms work, but the dominant hardware choice is a strong consideration that should influence the call you make.
• Compliance requirements: Healthcare, legal and not-for-profit organisations often face specific retention, audit and data residency obligations. Both platforms can meet these, but the controls live in different places and cost different amounts. The ACSC Small Business Cloud Security Guides adapt the Essential Eight for Microsoft 365, which gives Microsoft-based SMBs a clear starting point. Google Workspace has equivalent controls, but they need to be configured deliberately rather than followed from a guide.
• Staff familiarity: Training cost is one of the most under-estimated expenses in any platform change, and a team of 30 staff losing half a day of productivity each while they find where things live in the new platform is a real cost. It is not a key reason to avoid changing platforms to one that’s a better fit, but it does belong on the balance sheet.
• Budget (including the hidden bits): Microsoft 365 plans run from Business Basic to Business Premium, with the security features most regional SMBs actually need sitting in the Premium tier. Google Workspace pricing is simpler to read but less feature-dense at the lower tiers. Price per seat is rarely the real number; the real number is what you spend to make either platform properly secure and backed up.

I Already Have a Platform, Should I Consider Switching? 

If your current platform isn’t feeling like the right fit, it’s a fair question. But it’s worth noting that platform migrations, while enticing, are expensive, disruptive, and often solve the wrong problem. In many cases, there’s more value to be found in the platform you already have, once it’s been reviewed and set up to support the way your team works.

This is where shared responsibility comes into play. Both Microsoft and Google secure the infrastructure and keep the lights on, but things like your data, user access, and configuration still sit with the business. Both platforms include the tools to manage this, but they don’t always come fully set up out of the box. Features like retention policies, security settings, and access controls need to be configured and maintained over time so the environment continues to run reliably.

When we work with new clients through our managed IT services, these features are often one of the first things we look at. In many cases, the next step is not to move platforms, but to tidy up the current environment.

How We Support Across Both Platforms (And Why That Matters)

Some IT providers focus mainly on Microsoft. Others work primarily within Google. At Cicom, we work across both platforms deliberately, so the starting point is always how your business operates, not a preference for one system over another.

On the security side, our approach is consistent across both environments. Huntress recently expanded its Managed Identity Threat Detection and Response from Microsoft 365 across to Google Workspace, meaning there’s the same 24/7 monitoring applied to both. For regional SMBs, that means visibility into how accounts are being accessed and whether anything unusual is happening, regardless of which platform is in place. With identity-based attacks continuing to rise, that consistency matters more than the platform itself.

Backup follows a similar pattern. Huntress Backup and Disaster Recovery runs on both Mac and PC endpoints, and we pair it with dedicated cloud-to-cloud backup for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace data. This helps cover situations that sit outside standard platform protections, like data being removed after a retention period, files being encrypted, or accounts being closed before information is recovered. One backup approach, two platforms, same recoverability.

In practice, this means our clients aren’t locked into a platform decision we made for them. If Google Workspace fits, it can be secured, backed up, and maintained properly. If Microsoft 365 is the better fit, the same approach applies. Both platforms are widely used, and according to verified user reviews on Gartner Peer Insights, both platforms score similarly well, which means when they’re set up and managed with care, they can support a business reliably as it grows.

Practical Next Steps For Your Current Environment

Whether you are on Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or still deciding, there are a handful of actions you can take today that will make a big difference to your security, productivity and peace of mind: 

• Audit what you actually have: List your licences, your shared mailboxes, your admin accounts and your external sharing settings. Most SMBs find surprises within the first half-hour.
• Harden identities: Make sure multi-factor authentication is set up on every account, with conditional access rules for risky locations, and removal of legacy authentication protocols. 
• Back up the platform properly: Built-in retention isn’t always enough on its own. Choosing a dedicated backup approach helps protect against accidental loss, security incidents, or data being removed before it’s noticed.
• Review your plan tier: Many Microsoft 365 clients are paying for Business Standard when Business Premium would give them the security controls they already need. Many Google Workspace clients are on Business Starter when the Business Standard feature set would save them money elsewhere. A five-minute licence review often pays for itself.
• Take a step back and get a second opinion: If your environment hasn’t been reviewed in a while, it’s worth having someone take a fresh look. The gap between what’s assumed and what’s actually in place can be wider than expected. We offer a free onsite IT assessment to review your current environment, which can help surface gaps without any obligation to change providers.

For most regional and coastal businesses, the answer to the Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 question is fairly straightforward. Both platforms can support a business well when they’re set up and managed properly. Where things tend to fall short is not in the choice of platform, but in how it’s maintained over time.

The businesses that get the most value from either platform are the ones that treat it as something to look after and refine as they grow, rather than something that was set once and left to run.