Published : 16/02/2026 - 5 minutes read
Customer Success Stories
Mediahuis harmonizes its IT landscape with Inetum
For Mediahuis, the fragmentation of digital platforms had become a brake on efficient collaboration. The solution? An ambitious migration to a single, centralized Microsoft 365 environment.
To continue growing as a European media powerhouse, you need more than strong news brands, you also need a robust and unified IT environment. For Mediahuis, the patchwork of digital platforms that had emerged after years of acquisitions increasingly stood in the way of seamless cooperation. The answer came in the form of a bold migration to one central Microsoft 365 tenant. Together with Inetum, the media group executed a complex digital relocation that now forms the foundation for its future ambitions.
Since its founding in 2014, Mediahuis has grown into a leading European media group. With operations in Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Germany, the company manages a wide range of news brands, including De Standaard, De Telegraaf, and The Irish Independent. This expansion, driven by a strategy of acquisitions and digital acceleration, also introduced significant technological complexity: a patchwork of IT systems and separate Microsoft 365 tenants.
“Our growth strategy relies heavily on digitalization, which means we need to modernize our processes and workplace to stay relevant,” says Jonathan De Nil, System Engineer Digital Workplace at Mediahuis. Jonathan is part of the Technology & Product Studio (TPS), the overarching IT organization at Mediahuis comprising about 450 employees. “Within the Infra department, with roughly 80 colleagues, we were faced with the challenge of enabling smooth collaboration across different entities and countries.”
One tenant for borderless collaboration
The need for digital realignment was evident. As long as employees were spread across multiple tenants, digital walls continued to exist. “We wanted colleagues to stop switching environments just to share files or collaborate in Teams. We also noticed that each tenant was configured differently, which led to inconsistencies and confusion across the group. A centralized and standardized environment would solve that”, Jonathan explains. The goal of the consolidation was clear: one central group tenant functioning as the organization’s digital heartbeat, designed for greater ease of use and improved efficiency.
“By onboarding everyone onto a single tenant, we’re creating a unified address book. You can easily find colleagues, whether they’re in Amsterdam, Antwerp, or Dublin. The central tenant also enables us to share mail domains. We’re no longer bound by the technical limitations of which domain is tied to which tenant. Previously, we often had to disappoint departments or rely on workarounds, which were never ideal and came with their own restrictions. One tenant boosts internal collaboration and the use of shared mailboxes across different entities.”
This step was also essential for workplace management. Mediahuis has begun a major rollout of Microsoft Intune for laptops and smartphones, shifting device management entirely to the cloud. “That only works efficiently if all users are in the same tenant. Now we don’t have to create the same configuration six times, which saves us enormous time and ensures a consistent user experience across the entire group.”
Weekend sprint
The scale of the operation Mediahuis embarked on was nothing short of impressive: a full tenanttotenant migration transferring all relevant data, accounts, and resources. The numbers speak for themselves: 136 domain names, 1,351 Teams channels, more than 1,500 user accounts, and 930 shared mailboxes.
On top of that, a massive amount of data needed to be relocated: 14.6 TB of email and 33.5 TB from OneDrive. And because Mediahuis operates in the news sector, where speed and continuity are critical, the organization could not simply shut down operations to complete the migration. “The entire exercise had to take place within a single weekend, with as little downtime as possible”, says Jonathan De Nil. The starting signal was given at 11 PM on Friday, after which the team raced against the clock to finalize everything before the new workweek began.
Master Framework as the success factor
To guide the highrisk operation, Mediahuis partnered with Inetum and its unique Master Framework. This framework, specifically developed for complex migrations, provides an automated plan designed to minimize risk. “Inetum came forward with the strongest proposal thanks to this reusable blueprint, which has already proven its effectiveness.”
The Migration Dashboard also provided peace of mind. “It gave us realtime visibility into the migration status, down to the level of individual users and devices. This allowed us to follow the migration from the front row and respond quickly and accurately to internal stakeholders, while Inetum’s technical specialists focused entirely on execution.” The Client Conversion module, automating tasks on employees’ devices to ensure Outlook and Teams switch seamlessly to the new environment—also proved extremely valuable.
Unique challenges
Beyond the time pressure and scale, the nature of the data itself presented unique complexities. At a media organization, data is much more than Word files and Excel sheets. “Editorial data is often highly fragmented,” Jonathan explains. “Teams chats contain a tremendous amount of essential information—from visuals and cartoons to weather images. We also found many sensitive documents, including financial information, in employees’ personal OneDrive environments.”
Accurately migrating chat history and the intricate permissions on shared documents was essential to ensure business continuity and protect confidentiality. There was also the complexity of merging accounts: many employees were active in multiple environments. Inetum had to consolidate everything carefully, with zero data loss.
Trust and transparency
Today, Mediahuis is fully reaping the benefits of its unified environment. IT support is simpler, collaboration flows more naturally, and the rollout of Intune is progressing rapidly. “This project laid the groundwork for our continued digital transformation”, Jonathan concludes. “Now that everything is consolidated into one central tenant, we can move forward with next steps, such as phasing out onpremise Active Directories and maximizing our cloudbased operations.” The successful migration demonstrates that even the most complex IT integrations, when supported by the right approach and expertise, can lead to a futureproof digital environment.