0:00

Over the last year, we've

0:00

seen huge anticipation for Microsoft

0:04

365 Copilot, and it's finally here.

0:08

For most organizations, the question isn't

0:08

whether to adopt, but how and how fast.

0:13

Early adopters stand to gain the

0:13

most, but moving ahead without

0:17

a plan comes at its own risks. You're listening to The Catalyst Gets

0:19

Clear on Copilot Adoption, a mini series

0:23

hosted by Softchoice's Braeden Banks.

0:26

From building a business case to

0:26

getting security, rollout, and adoption

0:29

right, we're going to help leaders

0:29

like you chart your best path forward.

0:34

It starts right here, right now.

0:40

On today's episode we ask, how do

0:40

you assess your Copilot readiness?

0:47

The old proverb, measure

0:47

twice, cut once, applies just as

0:50

much to charting your path to Copilot

0:50

adoption as it does to carpentry.

0:54

Before you put Copilot in their hands,

0:54

you'll have some questions to answer

0:57

around the impacts to your licensing

0:57

and security environment, along with

1:00

the safety Of course, how you're going

1:00

to ensure people actually use it.

1:04

Today, we're talking about how you

1:04

know you're ready for Copilot with

1:06

a simple step by step process. I'm talking with Matt Vasil, Director

1:09

of Emerging Technology at Softchoice,

1:12

about the importance of making

1:12

a detailed objective assessment

1:15

that considers licenses, security,

1:15

applications, and data before you

1:19

let your people loose on Copilot. Thanks so much, Matt, for joining

1:21

us here on the Catalyst podcast,

1:24

our Copilot Adoption mini series. . So today we're here to talk about

1:26

specifically the second phase of

1:31

our, you know, recommended Copilot

1:31

adoption flight path the assess phase,

1:36

which is all about getting ready in a

1:36

technical sense for adopting Copilot.

1:41

So Matt, I wanted to ask you from your

1:41

point of view, what are the biggest

1:43

misconceptions about what it really

1:43

means to be ready for a Copilot?

1:47

Yeah, I'd say, you know, the

1:47

first and foremost one we, we came

1:50

across was that, you know, licensing

1:50

readiness equals Copilot readiness.

1:55

And there's a misconception that just

1:55

because you may be licensing ready

1:58

for it, you've got all the underlying

1:58

licenses that you can flick the

2:02

switch and start realizing value.

2:04

I think this is coming from kind

2:04

of this preconceived idea that most

2:07

users are just going to get it and be

2:07

proficient as soon as they get access.

2:11

Well, it may be true for a small

2:11

percentage of early adopters and like

2:16

technically savvy users, but for the

2:16

large majority, that's just not the case.

2:20

Right. And even early on from a perspective

2:21

of things like security, data, and kind

2:25

of the governance around all of those

2:25

things, what's the sense that you have?

2:29

Like, how bad could it really get

2:29

if an organization were to say,

2:32

cut corners or skip ahead on this

2:32

kind of a readiness assessment?

2:37

I

2:37

guess

2:37

in

2:37

terms of how bad it could

2:37

get, it's probably a range from a

2:41

best case of a kind of just a wasted

2:41

investment of time and capital when.

2:45

You know, folks don't adopt or use or

2:45

doesn't deploy correctly to probably

2:50

worst case, which something more

2:50

significant, like your employees easily

2:54

accessing and leveraging sensitive

2:54

information that you previously thought

2:58

was secure, but copilot makes it

2:58

much more readily available to folks.

3:03

So taking that information, creating

3:03

content from it and potentially

3:06

disseminating that information.

3:08

Right. I mean, even in my own experiences with

3:08

Copilot, I've had files that I've worked

3:12

on recommended to me, you know, supporting

3:12

tasks and questions I've asked for it.

3:16

And I'm like, I don't know,

3:16

are those really ready to

3:19

be shared with other people? So it takes a new perspective of what

3:21

it is you're creating and sharing.

3:24

Within that Microsoft like ecosystem and

3:24

that kind of tees up like what are the

3:28

areas that might be easy to overlook or

3:28

assume that it's okay to leave as is.

3:34

I mean, where are we really seeing

3:34

organizations like soft choice, you

3:37

know, risking things by cutting corners?

3:39

Yeah, I think. You know, there's a phrase that's going

3:40

around, which is security by obscurity.

3:45

When you've got a whole bunch of

3:45

folders and files, you know, hidden in

3:49

SharePoints, personal users assuming

3:49

that because they're four layers

3:54

deep, someone's not going to be able

3:54

to readily get at it or access it.

3:58

Just having the, the awareness that

3:58

Copilot will, will easily surface that

4:02

information and bring it into documents.

4:04

I think. One of the biggest things we found

4:05

in our journey is that we really

4:09

didn't have the adoption change

4:09

management skill sets within our I.

4:13

T. organization to help

4:13

assist with our rollout.

4:16

They're so important to a successful

4:16

rollout, making sure users are

4:20

proficient and really getting

4:20

kind of at that business value

4:23

that you've originally identified. I think probably one of the

4:25

other areas is that productivity

4:29

improvements automatically translate

4:29

into business achievements.

4:33

So it's easy to go into this

4:33

thing thinking that, okay, I'm

4:37

returning 1 to 2 hours a week.

4:39

And that's a slam dunk business case.

4:42

But the question that we quickly faced

4:42

is, how do those extra hours translate

4:47

into things like business objectives

4:47

and strategic measurable improvements

4:53

to help move your business forward?

4:54

You know, taking all that

4:54

in mind, like how in depth can that

4:57

upfront readiness work actually get?

4:59

I mean, like you said, there's

4:59

sometimes this impression that you

5:03

can just kind of turn it on and it'll

5:03

start delivering those benefits.

5:06

But like, realistically, what kind of. Upfront investment and effort

5:08

is an organization looking at,

5:12

I think, just generally, the

5:12

more you invest your time in the

5:15

planning and the assessment stages,

5:15

the better off you're going to be to

5:20

understand and realize the benefits and

5:20

identifying if you're licensing ready.

5:24

It's just, like I said, one element of it. Really, this involves.

5:28

Do you have the data classification

5:28

policies and permissions in

5:32

place to protect the sensitive

5:32

data so that users can access?

5:37

What they should access

5:37

versus what they can do.

5:40

You have their resources in place to help

5:40

with ongoing technical support, sustain

5:45

change management adoption efforts. And then I go, you know, always

5:48

back to the business case.

5:50

Like, how do you plan to ensure

5:50

your employees are using it in

5:54

a way that drove that initial

5:54

business case in the 1st place?

5:56

Like, what are the management practices

5:56

to ensure their effectiveness?

6:00

No, that makes a lot of sense. And I mean, you know, do you get

6:01

the sense that most organizations

6:04

are mostly ready or are many of

6:04

them like significantly far behind?

6:09

What we're seeing is that

6:09

most aren't ready, meaning that

6:12

they don't really know what to do. We see a lot of organizations buying

6:14

10, 15 licenses and then giving it

6:19

to folks potentially within the IT

6:19

group, like my group, to play with.

6:23

The challenge is that without kind of

6:23

that preparation, they really don't

6:27

know how to properly evaluate it. And really to prove out a business case,

6:29

they don't have awareness of how the

6:32

tool should be used and what are the

6:32

outcomes that could be seen, nor do they

6:36

have awareness of kind of the risk of

6:36

expanding that beyond 10 to 15 users.

6:42

One thing that we recommend as

6:42

soft choice for customers going through

6:46

this process is a readiness assessment.

6:49

Can you talk a little bit about

6:49

what output our assessment provides

6:51

and whether those can tell someone

6:51

about how much work is ahead of them

6:54

before they're ready for copilot? I

6:57

mean, assessment or otherwise,

6:57

it's always starting with the why, right?

7:00

So what are the business problems

7:00

the customer is looking to solve?

7:03

And then how do you turn those into use

7:03

cases and then assign those use cases to

7:08

actual pieces of functionality or personas

7:08

that can apply to their business users?

7:12

Once you've got that, then I think

7:12

you can get into the meat of the

7:15

assessment, which is identifying,

7:15

really, are you licensing ready?

7:19

So does the customer meet? Minimum requirements as far as licensing,

7:20

versioning, and the assessment evaluates

7:26

readiness against kind of a red, yellow,

7:26

green stoplight scoring mechanism.

7:30

We then layer on security reviews to

7:30

help customer understand if there are

7:35

compliance, data protection, or data

7:35

retention concerns they should address.

7:40

And really, finally, the

7:40

focus on adoption planning.

7:43

How can we ensure that all that prep

7:43

work that went into licensing readiness,

7:47

security readiness, and that went into

7:47

developing that business case is actually

7:51

being realized by ensuring our users

7:51

are leveraging CoPilot effectively?

7:55

No, that's amazing. So Matt, just to take it a little bit

7:56

of a different direction, in our own

7:59

CoPilot adoption process in which you

7:59

were involved as part of the early

8:03

adopters program with Microsoft, could

8:03

you tell me one or maybe two things

8:07

we wish we had known or perhaps done

8:07

differently from a technical standpoint

8:10

before we embarked on that process? Or did we kind of nail it?

8:13

From the get go.

8:14

I would say we were one

8:14

of our own first customers to go

8:18

through the readiness assessment. So, from a technical standpoint,

8:20

we were aware of all where we

8:25

stood from a licensing and a

8:25

data protection perspective.

8:29

I think if you were to re ask that

8:29

a bit more generally, I'd probably

8:32

double down on the effort we put

8:32

into tying Copilot use cases to clear

8:37

and measurable business objectives. So now that you've deployed it

8:40

effectively, you've protected your

8:43

data and you've got your users using

8:43

it, what is the value that it's

8:48

returning back to your organization? That's something clean

8:50

and easy to measure.

8:53

You can communicate back to your stakeholders.

8:55

Right. That makes a lot of sense. You know, how much does your in

8:57

your experience that old fashioned

9:00

resistance to change play a factor

9:00

in getting ready for copilot?

9:03

And this can be from a technical team

9:03

standpoint or, you know, lack of interest

9:07

in adopting something new or or even just

9:07

on the people end on the adoption phase.

9:11

Does that weigh in a lot in your experience?

9:14

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, with any significant change,

9:16

change resistance plays a factor, and

9:20

I'd say kind of any move to kind of AI

9:20

technologies right now that's almost

9:24

compounded, which is kind of why when

9:24

we were getting ready to move and

9:28

deploy kind of this user study and our

9:28

rollout, we picked this cross section

9:33

of early adopters, potential change

9:33

resistors really have kind of wide

9:37

perspective so that we could tailor

9:37

adoption plans to meet both those

9:42

groups kind of where they were at. One way we looked at it was our

9:43

general Copilot for web adoption,

9:48

like how often were our employees

9:48

accessing these chat GPTS type tools?

9:54

Because it's a good indicator of, you

9:54

know, if they're ready for a change or who

9:57

could potentially be champions in your. Copilot for 365 rollout and just a good

9:59

indicator of, you know, an AI appetite

10:04

and acumen across the organization,

10:07

right? Because I suppose it does raise

10:07

the significant risk of that sort

10:11

of AI powered shadow it adoption.

10:13

I imagine there's a lot of risk

10:13

presented by employees or internal

10:17

users going out and using, you know,

10:17

the public LLMs or other similar tools.

10:21

That maybe aren't sanctioned and putting

10:21

sensitive data out there to get, you

10:24

know, whatever the return is on it. Like you know, create this report

10:26

or help me write my executive

10:30

summary or something like that. Right. Is that part of the process of readiness?

10:34

Yeah, absolutely. One of the most important kind of

10:35

milestones we, we stood up was.

10:39

Producing a responsible AI use policy.

10:42

Previously, we had some guidance,

10:42

but not a formal policy.

10:47

And really, the policy kind of talked

10:47

exactly what you just mentioned.

10:50

Like, what type of data? What type of tools should you be using?

10:54

When it really put a lot

10:54

of accountability still on.

10:58

The end user to own the content that's

10:58

being produced and to use their own

11:03

judgment to make sure if it's accuracy

11:03

and correctness before sending that out.

11:09

But I'd say that's a pivotal piece

11:09

of kind of any company rollout is

11:12

make sure they've got a, a use policy

11:12

around it that supports the behavior

11:16

that they're trying to encourage.

11:19

And in kind of preparing

11:19

for the conversation to, you

11:21

know, I kept coming across the

11:21

phrase of garbage in garbage out.

11:24

And that kind of made me

11:24

think of the specific.

11:27

Context of data readiness and I

11:27

kind of wanted to ask you a little

11:30

bit about how soft voice approached

11:30

making sure our data to be connected

11:35

with copilot within Microsoft 365.

11:37

How did we approach that? And how do you know

11:38

when it is clean enough?

11:41

Is there a way to know?

11:42

I don't know if. You can never fully know based off of

11:43

the, just the general limits or lack

11:48

of limits in the copilot ecosystem.

11:51

Like everything in your

11:51

tenant is up for grabs.

11:53

I think where you need to put focus is

11:53

really understanding what's sensitive.

11:58

What is off limits for folks? Where. Should they play and where shouldn't

12:00

they play and having kind of those

12:03

retention and data labels around

12:03

it to ensure that can't get out.

12:08

But it does come with a good amount

12:08

of business process change as well.

12:12

It's not something that you can just

12:12

stand up a data label called sensitive

12:16

and then expect folks to use it. Correctly. So coming with that kind of guidance

12:18

and saying, Hey, we've stood up

12:21

this new data protection policy.

12:23

Here is the process to classify

12:23

a piece of data correctly.

12:27

And here's what's going to happen if you do. Or more importantly, what's

12:29

what's not going to happen.

12:32

So I'd say that's kind of where the

12:32

journey we went through is taking a

12:35

look at our data and focusing on the

12:35

personal information, highly sensitive

12:40

information first as a starting point.

12:43

Right. And it kind of brings back that

12:43

that age old chestnut in the I.

12:46

T. world of like your biggest threat

12:46

is, of course, the human breathing

12:50

12 inches from the screen, right? Like, no matter how technically ready

12:51

you may feel you are without that human

12:55

guidance and business process change.

12:57

I mean, you're still, I think,

12:57

considerable risk of things going wrong.

13:01

So that's got to be a two pronged approach. Agreed.

13:04

I'd say the same thing. So before we wrap the conversation,

13:05

having gone through the experience of

13:09

rolling out Copilot at SoftChoice and,

13:09

you know, we're not to toot our own

13:13

horns, you know, we're probably immersed

13:13

in this sort of generative AI space

13:17

in the enterprise tech world here at

13:17

SoftChoice for those out there who maybe

13:20

have a workforce that's not necessarily

13:20

as advanced in this kind of area,

13:25

knowledge wise, is there anything you'd

13:25

want them to think about as they kind of

13:29

approach this could be daunting project?

13:31

Yeah, I think it's

13:31

it's really understanding.

13:35

What you're trying to get out of it. First, understand the use

13:36

cases, potential benefits.

13:40

I think the more you can get your

13:40

employee base immersed in, you know,

13:44

just general prompt understanding,

13:44

the better off you'll be.

13:48

And, you know, that could be through, you

13:48

know, copilot for web activity, something

13:52

that most have available to them. Standing up adoption or training or

13:54

drop in sessions on how to use it,

13:59

get folks really familiar with that

13:59

prompt engineering perspective, which

14:03

translates so well into copilot for 3 65.

14:08

And if you've got a user base

14:08

that's familiar with that.

14:11

The adoption activities will

14:12

will be much less. Any last thoughts for our listeners

14:14

before they move on to episode three?

14:19

Yeah, I think, you know, once

14:19

you've gotten through kind of the plan

14:21

stage and you're into assess, it really

14:21

is around, you know, what does readiness

14:26

look like for your specific organization?

14:29

Let us help kind of identify

14:29

potential risks and challenges.

14:32

both technically and organizationally,

14:32

and make sure you're really

14:36

aware of kind of the financial

14:36

and human resources required.

14:40

That's how I would kind

14:40

of encompass the SS stage.

14:43

Thank you very much for the time.

14:45

And thank you so much for

14:45

lending us your time and joining

14:47

us here on the Catalyst podcast.

14:50

Thanks so much, Matt. Thank you. While the pressure from all sides to

14:53

get going with Copilot is palpable,

14:56

you cannot overstate the importance

14:56

of being sure your data is clean,

15:00

your licenses are in order, and your

15:00

people are ready to unleash their

15:03

potential with this technology. Thank you. By properly assessing your readiness,

15:05

you can prepare and protect your data

15:08

and set your organization up for success. That's all for now, but the

15:11

journey doesn't end here.

15:13

Join us in the next episode, where

15:13

we'll explore another golden rule

15:16

of copilot adoption, start small. Until next time, I'm

15:18

your host, Braden Banks. Thank you for listening.

15:24

Imagine a world where your

15:24

organization doesn't just follow

15:26

AI trends, it leads the way. Softchoice is ready to help you build

15:29

that world with Copilot for Microsoft 365.

15:34

Why Softchoice? We help our customers navigate

15:35

the whole copilot journey with a

15:39

proven consulting framework, secure

15:39

implementation experience, and deep

15:43

certification in Microsoft technology. We know Microsoft better than anyone.

15:48

Every copilot needs a navigator. Softchoice is yours.

15:52

Visit softchoice. com slash Microsoft dash copilot

15:53

to learn how we can help you

15:57

unleash the potential in your

15:57

people and technology with copilot.