Leveraging Business Premium and E3’s security to supercharge Copilot productivity
The hype around AI is running high. But as customers gear up to embrace the technology, and as Microsoft Copilot’s release nears, have you and your customers considered the true security implications?
There’s no doubt AI can bring clear productivity gains for all businesses, including SMBs.
Research from the Tech Council of Australia shows a 44% increase in productivity through the use of Generative AI and Microsoft’s Work Trend Index shows that a 16% increase in productivity can be gained by leveraging Microsoft 365’s current AI capabilities.
Copilot will be a big driver for increased productivity in many businesses as it combines the power of large language models with an organisation’s own data. Working alongside Microsoft 365 apps, it promises to be a real-time intelligent assistant, empowering your customers and improving your productivity, creativity and skills – all using natural language prompts.
But what we’re all after is secure productivity.
Security comes first
There are many security implications behind Copilot. And that’s where you, as your customers’ trusted advisor, come in.
Consider, for example, the issue of business data, access to that data and data management.
If your customers are using Sharepoint, or even local file storage, their own staff will have been able to access certain parts of Sharepoint related to their role. But over time, things get shared with team members. They are granted permissions to look at certain files and folders and, more likely than not, those permissions are not removed. New – sometimes sensitive – information gets added to the folders.
Copilot will look at everything a customer’s staff member has access to, including any sensitive information included in folders which they really should not have access to.
Copilot automatically inherits your customer’s security, privacy and compliance policies and processes from Microsoft 365. Ensuring the right protections are in place will make Copilot an AI solution they can truly trust – and one that will power up their productivity.
The simple underlying message here is that security comes first.
Leverage Microsoft 365 Business Premium or E3 for a Copilot future
Copilot will be a big part of Microsoft’s productivity suite, but there needs to be security surrounding that, both internally and externally. Additionally, you still need to align your business with a security framework or strategy.
Microsoft’s Business Premium provides you the ability to tick off a lot of boxes within security frameworks, whether around identity, device, data or application security.
It enables your customers to build a zero-trust foundation, keeping their data safe from unauthorised access with multi-factor authentication, defending against advanced cyber threats and safeguarding business data with enterprise-grade protection against phishing, ransomware and data loss.
Using Business Premium features, such as Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Defender for Business, you can simplify the onboarding, management and monitoring for both company-owned and BYOD devices, expanding the ability to receive alerts and gain valuable insights into device and application vulnerabilities.
For resellers, Business Premium and Copilot offer plenty of opportunities for add-on – and value-add – services, from change management to data management, risk assessments and data lifecycle management.
So how can you maximise the security opportunities currently presenting themselves?
- Talk to your customers about their security concerns and help educate them on what the expanding threat landscape looks like for their business.
- Align yourself with a cybersecurity strategy or framework and deliver this as a simplified service to customers.
- Leverage the correct tools – some of which come at no cost! – to monitor, report and remediate the security best practices you have provided.
By focusing on your cybersecurity services, resellers will inevitably reap the benefits of the enhanced productivity options with Copilot too. Now is the time to open those discussions with your customers and to start reaping the benefits – and setting your customers on the path to harnessing Copilot’s benefits too.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the security implications of Copilot and how Business Premium and E3 can assist, download the Microsoft Partner Playbook Modern Work for Partners - Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
If you need further assistance on how to open discussions with your customers on M365 Business Premium or E3, feel free to reach out to me at mark.voyce@ingrammicro.com.