Making an impact: Navigating the journey towards a Microsoft 365 Copilot strategy

Generative AI (Gen AI) is here to stay. As organizations seek to keep pace in their fast-moving industries, they are looking for new ways to work, communicate and create. To support this transformation, organizations are looking to incorporate AI-powered tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot into their everyday operations. KPMG professionals have guided organizations in evaluating and implementing Copilot, which integrates Gen AI capabilities into existing Microsoft applications, such as Teams[CL1] , Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Through first-hand experiences, KPMG professionals have learned key lessons that can help organizations maximize business value while navigating the complexities of digital transformation.

Implementing Copilot can bring many benefits. Most immediately, organizations can see a boost in productivity as they automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks like drafting emails and scheduling meetings. Through KPMG professional’s experiences, we can see that Copilot has the potential to improve efficiency depending on the scale of the implementation and the corporate departments using Copilot. However, the value of Copilot goes beyond measurable time savings, and can help boost creativity and foster innovative opportunities, as well as other improvements, such as:

• Enhance quality by providing AI-driven suggestions and assistance in terms of content or design ideas, as well as supporting quality assurance tasks like proofreading or data analysis to drive innovation and better outcomes.
• Generate new business opportunities by helping sales teams craft compelling emails, offer real-time suggestions and pull insights from CRM data – all so they can identify additional opportunities and close deals faster.
• Reduce external spending by supporting currently outsourced business processes, such as copywriting or content creation.
• Enhance the employee experience by better integrating the workplace and connecting employees with data in more seamless ways (e.g., self-service via Microsoft Teams).

For example, in a recent project, KPMG professionals worked with clients to enhance the employee experience in their organization through implementing Copilot enhanced HR-processes. This began with a focused project investigating how Copilot supports day-to-day processes like onboarding colleagues and faster responses on a HR helpline but quickly evolved into a broader workstream on the opportunity to enhance the entire process landscape to bring it to a place where Copilot could be implemented. The outcome was a clear view of the process that Copilot would support going forward and how team members would use it to prompt and leverage data. 

Get clear on your ROI

Introducing a new tool like Copilot into an organization demands careful consideration and planning. It also requires transparency around the investments required as well as the business value potential. There are plenty of Copilot use cases available that outline the added value the tool offers for different functions and can be used to assess long-term positive value of the implementation.

On the other side of the ROI equation, it’s important to get clear on the initial and ongoing costs involved in implementing Copilot. While licensing fees are important to consider, there are other expenses that can contribute, sometimes significantly, to a project’s budget. Initially, these may include:

• Technical readiness and implementation to configure Microsoft 365 and other various apps.
• Workforce readiness to train employees to get the most out of Copilot.
• Data governance to modernize data frameworks and sources, to better ensure the data used by Copilot is accurate, relevant and of high quality.

From an ongoing costs perspective, organizations should consider:

• Licensing fees for Copilot, which are not included in the standard Microsoft 365 subscription plan.
• Operating costs to cover ongoing maintenance and support to keep Copilot reliable and performing optimally.
• Ongoing skilling updates through established community and centers of excellence to keep employees up to date on the latest developments and best practices.
• Data management to ensure the whole company actively manages data daily so Microsoft Copilot remains a reliable and trustworthy tool.

Implementing Copilot is a powerful step in integrating Gen AI into your workplace. Yet, it is important to remember that Copilot is just one piece in an organization’s larger digital transformation puzzle. Becoming a fully mature Gen AI-enabled workplace is a journey through various levels. Each level, as outlined below, requires different considerations and efforts. Graduating through each maturity level demands substantial investments. The process also requires an organization’s people, technology, and the whole enterprise to grow and mature, too. 

• Level 0: Early Copilot discovery work
  Copilot is evaluated by a small fraction of users in the company to assess valuable use cases and provide first assessment about the actual potential.
• Level 1: Basic Copilot implementation
  Copilot is rolled out on a broader scale, integrating into the Microsoft 365 suite, and leveraging the knowledge of the Microsoft Graph, the gateway to data and intelligence within the Microsoft ecosystem.
• Level 2: Copilot data and functionality extension
  Copilot is extended with additional knowledge and custom functionalities. This involves using graph connectors or plugins to enrich Copilot with domain-specific or organizational knowledge and using declarative copilots with custom prompt instructions tailored to specific tasks or scenarios. This also involves using Microsoft Copilot Studio, a low-code tool that allows users to create and share their own custom copilots.
• Level 3: Advanced workplace customizations
  Full workplace Gen AI integration with advanced customization and integration.
  This involves using the cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, to create and deploy highly customized and sophisticated copilots that leverage custom AI models, orchestration, semantic grounding, data, and prompts. It also involves integrating these copilots with the Microsoft 365 user experience or sharing them externally with customers or partners.

One of the most important decisions an organization must make is when – not if – to begin their Gen AI transformation. The journey will take time, and the value captured will be slow to start, but often value unfolds exponentially as the organization matures. By delaying the start of your Gen AI journey, you may also delay achieving efficiency gains, enhanced creativity, and new business opportunities. Nevertheless, it is important to look beyond standard business case figures and consider the value to be captured at each phase of your Copilot adoption cycle.

• Starting the Gen AI journey
  Once implemented, teams will go through an early phase of excitement and high usage rates. This will slow down as inflated expectations get a reality check. Overcoming this phase can put the organization on track to achieve the full potential of Copilot. The earlier a company successfully masters this phase the earlier true value can be unfold.
  
  
• Enhancing Gen AI expertise
  It takes time for a workforce to adapt to Copilot and become proficient in the art of prompting. Over time, users can also integrate Copilot into more of their daily processes, finding new value adding use-cases. This can help uncover value beyond the initial business case considerations and inform where to focus next along the maturity cycle.
  
  
• Making data governance the DNA of the organization
  Data is a key factor for unlocking value from Gen AI, especially with Copilot. Yet, data governance in most organizations is not at a place where the potential of Copilot can be fully realized. Developing a data governance model and integrating it into the day-to-day work can help teams to begin to align data to their underlining processes. Committing to this practice over time, data governance will become embedded into the organizational DNA for everyone in the company.

Integrating Gen AI tools like Copilot helps organizations open transformative opportunities that can help them thrive in our digitally advanced age. Yet, successful implementation requires more than just investing in technology – it involves strategic foresight, careful planning, and the broad capabilities you need to go from implementation to transformation. Learn how KPMG professionals can guide your organization through the process of creating a Copilot strategy – from running a small pilot to global enterprise-wide advanced workplace customizations – at kpmg.com/microsoftcopilot.