Backing up and Syncing Contacts (Android)

Potential use cases:

You have not previously enabled any Contact synchronisation and have contacts in different locations that you wish to consolidate
You have been instructed to perform or a factory reset of your hardware by technical staff

Available Backup Options:

Online Account (Preferred). This shields you from handset or local hardware or storage failure.
SD Card / Phone file system. This is fine, as long as you otherwise transmit a copy of the Backup data to an off-handset location. (e.g. via e-mail)

Assess the situation

First of all, locate and open the Contacts app on your phone. If this isn't on your home screen, swipe either up or down from the middle of the screen to show all apps. The icon usually looks something like this:
The Contacts App opens. Tap the 3 lines icon located top left of the app to open the menu
From the menu, you should see a total number of Contacts and a breakdown of where these are stored. Anything stored exclusively on the Phone or SIM Card can be considered "At risk". If you lose your phone or your phone becomes otherwise inoperable, these contacts will be lost too.

Configure Contact Sync in Outlook:

Outlook for Mobile comes with the ability to Synchronise contacts with your mailbox account hosted on the Office 365 platform. This presents several advantages:

If you lose or damage your phone, your contacts are safe and can be restored to a new handset
You have access to the same data across multiple devices where you are signed in. Any Contacts saved to that account on your phone will be available from Desktop and Web versions of Outlook and vice versa.

It is possible to achieve this using other externally managed accounts as well such as a Google Account that you may have attached previously in order to download apps from the Store, or a Samsung account if you set this up. This guide will assume the use of Outlook and Office 365 as this plafform is available to all staff. Follow these steps to enable Outlook Contact Sync.

Start Outlook on your mobile. Press your user icon / picture located top left, and tap the Gear icon located bottom left.
Select your Office 365 account beneath the "Mail Accounts" heading. If you have multiple accounts listed, select the one that makes most sense to you.
Select "Sync Contacts". Approve / Allow any device access requests that appear on screen:
With this setting enabled, any contacts in your selected Outlook account should now start to download to your handset. The next step will be to ensure that this account is the default save location for any new contacts you add on your handset.
Return to the Contacts App, and open the menu from the top Left. Select "Manage Contacts" from the bottom of the menu.
Select "Default Storage Location"
Select your Outlook Account
Done! Any contacts you create in Outlook for Desktop or Web will automatically Sync to your phone, and vice versa.

Backup / Transfer Contacts:

Return to the Contacts app and open the menu from the top left. Select "Manage Contacts" from the bottom of the menu.
Select "Move Contacts"
Select the Location from which you wish to transfer Contacts (Phone, Sim, or other account)
Select (and/or deselect) the contacts you want to transfer, or accept the default selection of all contacts and press "Done".
Select where you want to transfer the Contacts to (Choose Outlook or another suitable off phone location)
Confirm the details and the press "Move" to complete the transfer. This will take a variying amount of time depending on how many contacts you are trying to move.
Done! Repeat this process until all Contacts are stored in non-local (Phone/SIM Card) locations