What Business Standard is
Microsoft 365 Business Standard is the apps-plus-cloud SKU for organisations under 300 seats. It includes the Office desktop and web apps, Outlook with Exchange Online, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint and Microsoft 365 services like Bookings, Planner and Forms. It does not include the security stack — no Intune, no Defender, and only the free tier of Entra ID (no Conditional Access).
Why most Australian SMBs need to step up to Premium
If your business handles personal information of any kind — and almost all do — the Australian Privacy Act expects 'reasonable steps' to protect it. The Notifiable Data Breaches scheme makes the consequences of inadequate protection both reportable and reputationally expensive. Business Standard does not give you the controls expected of a 'reasonable steps' baseline. The jump to Business Premium adds Conditional Access, MFA enforcement, device management and EDR — the floor most regulators and insurers expect.
When Standard is genuinely fine
Business Standard is a legitimate fit for organisations that are not handling sensitive personal information, not regulated, and have an alternative security stack already in place (third-party MDM, third-party EDR, third-party identity controls). For most Australian businesses Premium pays back in the first cyber incident or insurance renewal cycle.
How to upgrade
Business Standard converts to Business Premium without re-issuing the tenant — Microsoft simply changes the assigned licence. Plan the deployment of the security features as a project (Conditional Access, Intune enrolment, Defender onboarding, sensitivity labels) — assigning the licence does not turn them on automatically.