It's a question most business owners have never thought to ask, and one a surprising number can't answer: who actually has Global Administrator access to your Microsoft 365 tenant? It matters more than it sounds.
What "Owning the Tenant" Actually Means
Your Microsoft 365 tenant is the container for your entire business's email, files, Teams, SharePoint and user accounts. Global Administrator access is the highest level of control over it — the ability to create and remove users, change security settings, and access virtually everything. Whoever holds that access effectively controls your business's digital infrastructure.
Why It Should Sit With Your Business, Not Your Provider
It's common, and not unreasonable, for an IT provider to hold day-to-day administrative access to manage your Microsoft 365 environment. The important distinction is between a provider having administrative access to do the job, and a provider being the only party with that access. If your business doesn't have its own record of ownership — a company-controlled global admin account, or at minimum clear documentation of who holds access and how to reach it — you can end up in a difficult position if you ever need to change provider.
What Can Go Wrong Without This
The practical risk shows up specifically when a relationship with an IT provider ends badly, or a provider goes out of business. Without your own ownership record, regaining control of your own tenant can become a slow, frustrating process involving Microsoft support and proof of business ownership — entirely avoidable with the right setup from the start.
How to Check Who Has Access Now
Ask your current IT provider directly: who holds Global Administrator access to our tenant, and does our business have its own record of it? A provider confident in their own practices should be able to answer this immediately and clearly. If the answer is vague, that's worth following up on.
What This Looks Like at REONEX
As part of Microsoft 365 & Cloud management, REONEX works to make sure Global Administrator access sits with your business, not permanently with us alone. It's also one of the first things reviewed as part of an organised handover — see Changing IT Provider for more on how that works.