Charting the Microsoft 365 Copilot Implementation Lifecycle – Part 4: The Manage Phase

Today we conclude our four part blog series on the Microsoft 365 Copilot Implementation Lifecycle – ECI’s recommended journey through four distinct phases of Organize, Assess, Deploy and Manage for getting the most out of Microsoft’s new 365 Copilot AI assistant. As we’ll learn below, the three stages that led to the successful launch of Copilot must be followed up by a final, ongoing management phase as business and regulatory conditions change over time.

Copilot Requires Ongoing Management 

For all the hard work that goes into successfully launching Copilot, the day you go live with the AI assistant is, after all, just a day – a moment in time. On that day, a well-planned implementation will be in close alignment with your organization's business processes, workflows, data loss prevention (DLP) and governance, risk and compliance (GRC) programs. The challenge is that this is just a snapshot in time, and all these dynamics around processes, security and compliance are in constant flux from day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month. 

Alternative investment firms need agility to quickly pivot how, as an AI assistant, Copilot works in support of business processes and workflows that many need to quickly change to drive a new growth initiative, portfolio strategy or some other business objective. At the same time, the cybersecurity landscape is always shifting as well, including emerging threats from BlackCat/ALPHV, JanelaRAT, Lockbit 3.0 and other ransomware that ECI’s threat hunters have flagged as targeting alternative investment firms.

Finally, the financial sector regulatory environment is an ever-changing global landscape of multiple regulations from multiple rulemaking bodies, including from the SEC, GDPR and governance frameworks from the UK, Hong Kong and elsewhere in the world. All these shifting factors around operations, security and compliance can impact the day-to-day conditions for how employees – or Copilot – should securely and compliantly work with enterprise data and systems.

Key Activities in the Manage Phase

The previous three phases in our Copilot Implementation Lifecycle covered the crucial steps of clarifying all the cyber assets and business processes that will interact with Copilot, and then optimally configuring and installing the platform. But the shifting operational, cybersecurity and regulatory conditions we described above – along with the ongoing user support and workforce training needs – are why it’s so crucial that the Copilot Implementation Lifecycle conclude with a fourth Manage phase. 

The Manage phase is an acknowledgement that the successful launch of Microsoft 365 Copilot is not the same as successful operation of Copilot over the course of time. As such, the activities in the Manage phase are designed to curate the countless data management and platform configuration choices that need to happen on an ongoing basis to keep Copilot aligned to the current state of the operation. 

It’s possible to view the Manage phase as less of a phase than an iterative, ongoing loop to optimize Copilot’s operation on a continuing basis. This includes monitoring usage for acceptable use and data loss; end user support; and adjusting policy and controls as needed. The Manage phase is particularly crucial to ensure ongoing compliance as financial regulatory rules shift frequently over time – including recent cryptocurrency tax changes by the IRS and the SEC's new cybersecurity rules on reporting threats and mitigating attacks.

When you zoom out and look at the entire lifecycle of implementing Copilot – from Organize and Assess, to Deploy and Manage – the essential value of ECI as the MSP of choice for financial sector firms on this journey becomes clear. ECI’s Microsoft Gold Partner status and our specialty in the financial sector makes us the ideal partner to handle deployment and ongoing management of Copilot in the demanding, highly regulated IT environments that most financial firms operate within. Learn more about how ECI is helping clients implement and manage Copilot for maximum efficacy and ROI, contact sales@eci.com