My organization had a large amount of sensitive data stored primarily in SharePoint Online. We also operate in a highly regulated industry. Therefore, we wanted to take advantage of some of the features offered by Microsoft Purview. Initially, we focused on sensitivity and retention labels, but we later expanded to include data loss prevention and benchmarking our data against the built-in regulations offered by Purview.
It is important that Purview delivers data protection across multi-cloud and multi-platform environments. Many organizations have multiple systems, which can be difficult to manage. I know that many of my clients are currently trying to amalgamate their systems and bring them all under one umbrella, but there will always be cases where organizations will not be able to have everything in a single software solution like Microsoft 365. Being able to take advantage of Purview's excellent features and deploy them across not only 365 but also other systems makes it much easier. I think this is one of the reasons why organizations are starting to look at things like Purview: it has the ability to deploy more widely, saving organizations a lot of time and effort and centralizing control.
It is important that Purview can connect to iOS, Mac, and Android devices, as well as other data and SaaS apps. Many organizations issue portable devices to their staff, especially those with a high percentage of hybrid remote workers. These mobile devices have become essential, both personally and professionally. Having governance across multiple devices is a brilliant feature.
Purview's integrated data link compliance is a great feature. The biggest selling point for me is the ability to deploy it from one location; I haven't been able to manage everything in one place before. This makes it much easier for local administrators, and it can also be used across different environments.
The connectors for supporting non-Microsoft data sources are a brilliant feature and a smart move by Microsoft. They allow us to apply our governance policies to data sources such as Twitter and WhatsApp, which are used by many organizations for customer interaction. This is important because it allows us to protect our customers' data, even when they are interacting with us on multiple platforms.
My experience of the critical regulations that Purview was built taking into account is predominantly UK regulations. When I first started at my organization, part of my role was data protection. So being able to benchmark our data against the GDPR and some of the UK's specific regulations was fantastic. But now I work with multinational clients, so we have offices in various locations in different geographies. So having specific legislation for the areas in which they operate is brilliant. More organizations are spread across different continents and countries. So being able to apply different legislation to different parts of their estate depending on where their offices are operating is a fantastic feature.
We are currently updating our data loss prevention policy internally, and we highly recommend that our clients use Microsoft Purview for DLP as well. I demonstrated Purview to a client a few months ago, and they were incredibly impressed with how effective it can be. I think they were particularly surprised by how quickly it can identify sensitive data. For example, we did a quick test where we uploaded a document that contained a piece of personal information that we had asked the Purview policy to look for. As soon as we uploaded the document to a SharePoint document library, we received an email alert warning us that the sensitive information was present and could be accessed by others. The alert was almost instantaneous. This shows that Purview is a very effective system for protecting data.
Microsoft Purview has enabled us to truly embed a culture of data governance among staff. This has been a major success, not just within our own organization, but also with our partners and clients. Many people talk about the importance of data governance, but Purview has helped us to increase the knowledge base of our users and empower them to take ownership of their data, rather than relying solely on IT professionals or data protection staff. This is a real positive for any business, especially those that work with sensitive information. The automation capabilities of Purview have also been a huge hit with our users. The ability to automatically apply data labels and implement advanced encryption policies has made it much easier for us to protect our data.
In previous years, we have used various methods and systems to try to achieve the same outcome, including spreadsheets and stand-alone systems. We are heavy users of Microsoft 365, so it is our primary system, but we also use other systems. Having one solution that can deploy our core policies and protections across different devices and platforms.
Microsoft Purview's reduction of solutions simplified our data governance. In the past, our data was scattered across different locations, making it difficult to manage and protect. Purview has brought our data together into one place, making it easier for users to access and for us to implement data governance policies. I believe that the more systems we have, the greater the risk of data protection incidents and the more difficult it is to deploy a unified data governance strategy. Reducing the complexity of our IT infrastructure goes hand-in-hand with improving data governance.
Some of the features in Purview have illuminated areas of our data site. In particular, when we have worked with organizations with large volumes of data, it has helped us to identify issues. For example, benchmarking our state against GDPR highlighted aspects of our operations that were not compliant. This was more important than the areas that were compliant, as it helped us to focus our attention on where we needed to make improvements. This helps us to provide assurance to our board.
We are about to launch an internal awareness campaign about AI and how we can use it. Microsoft Purview is on the list of AI solutions we will be considering. We are also about to start using Microsoft Copilot, and some of our staff are already using ChatGPT. We are looking at AI solutions within Microsoft 365 and some of our other systems. This is an area that we are very keen to develop, and it is something that our clients are also interested in. We can explore this in more detail in the coming months.
I've been amazed at how quickly the automation responds, especially when we have a large dataset. It takes that pain away from Teams and acts as a monitor for us. It's saved a huge amount of time, and once it can demonstrate internally or to clients how effectively it does what they expect it to do, that will save more time, but people who are responsible for this information need a lot of reassurance.
Purview enables us to demonstrate our compliance in real-time. We provide live reports to auditors and anyone responsible for information security risk management. We can show them our compliance status in real-time, which is excellent.
Our meetings with compliance regulators are positive when they are familiar with Purview. However, if they are not, we must be able to demonstrate to them how effective the solution is and how it can assist the organization in improving its data governance and data security. This has made the meetings much more positive, as the regulators are more assured that we are being more responsive and effective with the information we hold.
Automation plays a significant role in reducing the time to action on insider threats. We have had procedures in place for identifying, mitigating, and responding to specific risks, both internally and accidentally. However, our previous procedures were very manual, which obviously takes time. Now, in some situations, we can respond almost instantly. Automation has significantly improved our response time. Data breaches, for example, used to take a long time to investigate under our old process. From when a user reported a breach to when we could start investigating, it took hours to complete the necessary paperwork and documentation. But by using automation and some of the features in PurView, we've been able to reduce that time to minutes. In some areas, we've probably been able to reduce investigation time by 50 percent or more.
Time-saving is probably the most important benefit of automation and AI. The more time we can save people, across the board, not just Purview, the better. When we can automate tasks and improve response times, it takes away the need for manual input and frees people to concentrate on more important things. This naturally has a financial benefit. From my role, I've seen that the time savings have been really important. In some areas, we've seen time savings of up to 50 percent. So, when deployed properly, the benefits of automation and AI are huge.
Our ability to oversee compliance using Purview has been a game-changer. We have developed our own in-house compliance and risk management software, which I have been involved in. However, using Purview has been even more impactful. In addition to the automation and time savings, the key thing for us is the educational aspect. Purview helps us to raise awareness and make the organization more data-aware, regardless of role. This enables us to identify issues and, more importantly, rectify them.
