A tenant is an organisation’s dedicated environment within Microsoft’s cloud services, bringing together its accounts, configuration and data.
What does this mean in practice?
This is where administrators manage the company’s users and services. A tenant is neither an individual employee’s account nor the name of a licence. One environment can serve many people and support different subscriptions.
Example use case
A company uses email with its own domain and shared documents. Reviewing its tenant establishes who has administrator permissions and which licences are assigned to the team.
Things to consider
Outsourcing Microsoft 365 administration does not transfer ownership of your environment to the provider. Agree the scope of access, the people responsible and the handover arrangements when the service ends.
Related terms
See also: Microsoft 365 administration.
Sources: Microsoft Learn — Microsoft 365 tenant.