Motify
Background on the client
Motify is a South African, women-led automotive technology company and strategic partner that helps dealerships and OEMs drive customer loyalty and profitability. Based in Cape Town, the company operates at the intersection of automotive retail and technology, where data integrity, system reliability, and client trust are critical.
As the business evolved, its operational, security, and compliance requirements outgrew its existing Microsoft 365 environment. Motify required greater control over its digital infrastructure, including ownership of its domain, data, user management, and security policies.
By mid-2025, the company had decided to establish an independent Microsoft 365 tenant to support stronger governance, improve security, and provide a scalable foundation for future growth. The challenge was to execute the transition with minimal disruption while preserving years of business-critical data, permissions, and collaboration structures.
The identified problem that needed a solution:
Motify needed two things simultaneously: a managed IT partner to provide ongoing support, and an immediate infrastructure engagement to migrate the business from its legacy Microsoft 365 environment into a new, independently managed Microsoft 365 tenant..
Gaining independence was not cosmetic. Without its own tenant, Motify could not control its own identity, its own data residency, or its own compliance posture. Every user account, shared mailbox, and SharePoint site sat inside infrastructure Motify did not own.
The scope included:
70 live assets, each with its own permission structure, sharing relationships, and historical data. One user mailbox alone carried 17 years of correspondence. One SharePoint site had a unique configuration that could not be templated. Nothing could be treated as disposable.
Automated migration tooling was available, but at an exorbitant fee. More importantly, tooling would have moved the data but could not guarantee that permission structures, share links, and business logic survived the transition intact.
What solution did Warp provide?
Warp proposed a manual, hands-on carve-out at a quarter of the automated migration tooling fee. The decision was not driven by cost alone. Twenty distinct permission structures, thousands of live share links, and one uniquely configured SharePoint site demanded human judgement at every step.
Tenant build and identity
We provisioned Motify’s own M365 tenant from scratch. This included domain verification, Entra ID configuration, and 13 Microsoft 365 Business Premium licences assigned and validated before any data migration began.
Mailboxes, shared mailboxes and OneDrive
The team migrated 14 user mailboxes (including the 17-year archive), 20 shared mailboxes, and 16 OneDrive accounts into the new tenant. Folder structures, permissions, and delegation settings were preserved throughout.
SharePoint: rebuilt, not copied
Rather than copy-paste, Warp rebuilt all 20 SharePoint sites in the new tenant. Permissions, navigation, and site structure were re-established on each. The uniquely configured site received a bespoke migration path to preserve its business logic.
Cutover and day-one support
The full cutover ran over a single weekend. On Monday morning, Warp engineers worked in real time alongside Motify’s team, resolving lingering mailbox syncs and re-authentication issues as users encountered them. No open ticket queue remained by the end of the day.
Handover into steady-state support:
Motify transitioned directly onto Warp Developments Enhanced IT Support SLA. The stack includes SentinelOne EDR, managed patching, licence and asset management, availability monitoring, scheduled preventative maintenance, Cove 365 backups, and unlimited remote and on-site support with defined one-hour, four-hour, and eight-hour response times.
Project Results
Motify now owns its own M365 tenant, its own domain identity, and its own IT operating model. The migration grew beyond its original scope, was delivered in full and without data loss.
The manual approach saved approximately 75% compared to the automated migration tooling quote while delivering a higher-fidelity result. Every permission structure, every share link, and every year of email history arrived intact.
Beyond the migration, Motify gained a named managed IT partner with a full modern security stack. The business now operates with SentinelOne endpoint protection, automated backups, and defined response SLAs, infrastructure it did not have before the engagement.
The engagement positions Motify for independent growth. With its own tenant and its own IT partner, the business can scale its infrastructure, onboard new staff, and manage compliance on its own terms.
Testimonial
Today was another milestone day for us at Motify! Whilst yes an ‘IT move’ it also represents the next step in our future. How incredibly proud I am of the team that moved us. Thank you Warp Development!
(via LinkedIn)
Julie Caldicott – Motify, Managing Director
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